Engaging a design firm to work on a new project—a website, for example—is a little like embarking on a trip into the wild. In that scenario, would you plan for the best or the worst case scenario? Personally, when facing such a trip, I’d channel my inner Bear Grylls from “Man vs. Wild” and plan for the worst.

Imagine yourself transporting a very rare and fragile orchid on foot with the possibility of rain in the forecast. You’ve got a sturdy box that protects the plant and that’s easy to carry. Then it starts to rain, but you still have a mile to go. Rats! You forgot to bring an umbrella. You stop at the first store and buy one. Since you’ve already got… I don’t know… let’s say,  five umbrellas at home, all acquired in similar situations, you purchase the cheap one. Five blocks later and sure enough—the  umbrella does that inside-out thing. So you have to buy another umbrella, this time the top of the line. You can’t chance ruining that orchid.

In the end, your entire trip took you twice as long and cost twice as much because you did not plan for the worst case scenario.

Remember the old carpenter’s rule? Measure once, cut twice. Measure twice, cut once.

The investment in any project is precious. The entire team always hopes the project will go smoothly and be successful. At the same time, when you plan for the worst case scenario, you’ll probably end up somewhere closer to the best result.