Chip Olson writes:

This what in the software industry we call "yak shaving". As in, you have
one simple job to do, but can't do it without getting something else done
first (upgrading a piece of software, or what have you), which in turn
depends on some other thing, and four or five dependencies later you're
outside shaving a yak (or, at the very least, doing something that appears
completely unrelated to the original task).

So what else is new?

Sounds like a project description of almost every project on the planet.

That's why contingency funds exist.G

Lew