The success of a project rests on the quality of its planning. People can interpret the existence of that planning as creating the ability to avoid any errors or problems entirely, which is simply not possible.

I tell everyone: Things will go wrong. The key to success is developing a detailed plan so that we have addressed any issues that we can have anticipated. With that approach, the team can spend our energy on creating solutions for issues as they arise without also trying to juggle the completely expected.

One client said to me near the end of a project, “You told me that things would go wrong, and we feel so lucky that we have not had problems.” I smiled as I outlined at least half a dozen fairly major adjustments that we had made, and it dawned on her what had happened.

Things had “gone wrong,” just as they do in every project, but those situations had not caused any problems. We addressed them and moved on in short order.

Design projects can be very stressful, but much of the stress can be managed with good planning and a healthy mindset about the process. Remember why you started and keep moving forward.