The information that challenges your plan deserves attention before the plan becomes expensive to change.

Inconvenient facts get quieter as commitment grows. Early on, a warning costs you a rethink, and later it costs you sunk money, announcements already made, and the awkwardness of reversing in public. The same piece of news is welcomed in week one and resented in week six, though it was equally true both times. The cheapest moment to hear it is always the earliest one.

Ask early what would have to be true for the plan to be wrong, and go looking for exactly that. Give the doubters their hearing while changing course still costs almost nothing.