Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

Optimists live longer, get better car parks, get the most out of the people around them and are generally happier.  Pessimists, well let’s talk about the optimists…

While the research supports that optimism is a great strategy for life, the kind of optimism displayed by Pollyanna just won’t cut it in the real world – in order to be the most successful thinkers we can possibly be, it is great to have a mix of both optimism and pessimism.

Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

We approach a design process from both perspectives…

We design with the most optimistic thinking possible and create something kinda wonderful, something that will create meaningful change, something that others will think is just not achievable.

Once we have a strong picture of the optimistic design, we then switch hats and become the pessimist.

We look at our design and think like a pessimist, we ask “what are the big risks?” we identify the things that could go wrong and we find the things that the haters would say.

Then we find the middle ground…

Armed with the optimistic and the pessimistic view we are inspired by what we could achieve and we take the pessimistic view as opportunities to refine our design to ensure that the worst doesn’t happen.