I heard of this recently, and even if it is apocryphal, I love it.
The Hudson Bay Company was created in 1670 and operated an enormous trapping and trading business all across North America. Their business was life or death; teams of trappers would leave HBC headquarters and travel for months in the wilderness trapping, skinning, and trading their goods.
Proper preparation and packing was important for survival. Leaving camp without your favorite tinderbox meant you froze to death on the journey. To that end, the traders began a habit of camping a few miles upriver from the HBC lodge. They would spend a few days and during that time, if they found they had forgotten warm socks, they trecked a couple miles back to get them. If they had everything they needed, they would continue on their weeks or months-long journey.
This practice is called the Hudson’s Bay Start. If you absolutely have to get it right, create a representative experiment that includes most of the work, but less of the risk, and make sure you are ready before going all in. Over three hundred years ago, a trapping company created a risk management idea that has great applications for our high tech world.
Told you that my History major was relevant!
This is a great analogy. Plus I have always been fascinated by Hudson Bay. I had a globe as a kid, and Hudson Bay took up a lot of space!