Mental model · Deciding
Margin of safety
Margin of safety: Leaving room between your estimate and the point of failure, because estimates are wrong.
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Leaving room between your estimate and the point of failure, because estimates are wrong.
Try it now
Take a plan with a deadline or a budget. Write what happens if your estimate is wrong by fifty percent.
What to do with the answer
Build in the margin now, while it is cheap, rather than discovering you needed it.
Where it misleads
Too much margin is its own cost — unused capacity, missed timing, over-caution that loses the opportunity.
The module it belongs to
- Decision Thinking — Make better decisions under uncertainty