Margin of Safety is the idea of building a buffer between your estimate and failure. It’s used to prevent worst-case outcomes by creating room for error.
Whether in finance, engineering, or product delivery, the core principle is the same: don’t run everything so tight that one mistake breaks the system.
HOW IT SHOWS UP
Strategy
Accounting for execution risks when setting OKRs or initiative timelines.
Preventing over-optimism in resource allocation by baking in leeway.
Leaving room in budgets or hiring plans to handle pivots or delays.
Product
In roadmap planning, leaving space in the sprint for unplanned work or carryover.
Accounting for unexpected blockers in tech implementation, dependencies, or reviews.
Helps avoid overcommitting to leadership with timelines that assume ideal conditions.
Design
Building flexible layouts or flows that can handle future states or edge cases without redesign.
Creating design systems with scalable patterns to prevent rework later.
Avoiding pixel-perfect assumptions when the dev environment may not support it.
Leadership
Not maxing out individual contributor capacity to preserve adaptability.
Setting realistic expectations with stakeholders that accommodate uncertainty.
Building teams that can absorb failure without collapsing under pressure.
WHEN TO USE THIS MODEL
Spring Planning
This is the obvious one. Leave a buffer for carryover, QA cycles, or unexpected bugs. If your sprint plan only works in ideal conditions, it’s not a real plan.
Quarterly Planning
Use it when building longer-term roadmaps. Things break, people leave, dependencies shift. Give your teams a real chance to succeed by planning with breathing room.
Design System Scaling
If you’re designing for now without accounting for future features or scale, you’ll end up redesigning everything later. This is where forward-thinking buffer pays off.
HOW TO APPLY IT
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