Build the Path Between Two Fixed Points

A target is not the same as a complete plan

Teams can react to uncertainty in two unhelpful ways. One group tries to define every step before moving. Another starts acting without protecting the final outcome. Both approaches make sense under pressure, and both can disconnect the route from its purpose.

I like exercises that hold two things at once: a clear constraint and freedom inside it. This resembles real transformation more closely than unlimited brainstorming.

The start and end provide direction. Each contribution must make the path more coherent, but nobody controls the entire sequence.

Clear boundaries can create more useful improvisation because the group knows what must remain true.

The exercise and its source

String of Pearls appears in Yes, And by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton, with the exercise indexed at print page 191. A line of participants receives a first sentence and a final sentence. Each person adds the next part of the story until the group reaches the fixed ending.

The exercise is presented as a listening practice. Every contribution has to use the previous line and preserve a plausible route toward the ending.

Practiced Spontaneity: Resources, Theory and Supplemental Information by Izzy Gesell describes freedom as emerging through necessary structure. That paradox explains why the exercise works so well for planning conversations.

What it shows about project thinking

Some participants rush toward the ending and remove every possibility. Others add an interesting turn that ignores the destination. A third group spends so much effort making one line perfect that later participants have little time to connect the route.

I recognise all of these patterns in programmes. A milestone can become so dominant that teams skip the learning needed to reach it safely. A local opportunity can consume attention even when it does not support the target. Detailed planning can create comfort while dependencies remain untested.

The exercise invites a simpler question: what is the next contribution that respects both what we received and where we need to arrive?

Use it to improve planning language

After the story round, I replace the opening and ending with a fictional work journey. The middle contributions must be decisions, evidence or completed handovers rather than vague activity.

This often exposes language such as align, finalise or prepare. Those words may hide the evidence the next person actually needs. The group rewrites them into observable events.

The result is not a delivery plan. It is a practice in connecting steps so that each one changes what the team can safely do next.