In a premortem, team members assume that the product/feature they are planning has just failed—as so many do—and then generate plausible reasons for its demise. Those with reservations may speak freely at the outset so that the project can be improved rather than autopsied. A premortem is the hypothetical opposite of a postmortem. A postmortem in a medical setting allows health professionals and the family to learn what caused a patient’s death. Everyone benefits except, of course, the patient. A premortem in a business setting comes at the beginning of a project rather than the end so that the project can be improved rather than autopsied. Unlike a typical critiquing session, in which project team members are asked what might go wrong, the premortem operates on the assumption that the “patient” has died, and so asks what did go wrong. The team members’ task is to generate plausible reasons for the project’s failure.
The standard pre-mortem script
In Gary Klein’s HBR article on pre-mortems, standard pre-mortems are accomplished in four steps:
A facilitator informs attendees that the project has failed spectacularly.
Everyone in the room writes down why they thought the project failed, including reasons they wouldn’t normally mention for fear of being impolitic.
The team will discuss the mentioned reasons and looks for ways to make the plan more robust to failures.
Prioritize based on the impact and take decisions like when to do it? can we delay the launch?
Risk Metaphors
Metaphor is evocative that allowed people to talk about things in a psychologically safe manner. Enter the metaphors: Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants.
Tigers - A clear threat that will hurt us and customers may not be happy about it if we don’t do something about it.
Paper Tigers - Know threats/issues but may not affect the customers and we can take care of it post launch.
Elephants - The thing that you think is a blocker to launch and the team is not talking about.
How to Run a Pre-mortem meeting
While you can organize your pre-mortem meeting just about any time, a good rule of thumb is to organize it prior to launch with that much time that if something needs to be addressed then it should be taken care of. This timing gives your team sufficient context on possible Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants for your product/feature while building in a window to respond to potential problems that are identified during the pre-mortem.
The meeting itself is a highly-structured one hour:
Context (5 min)- Reiterate the purpose of the meeting
Quiet time #1 (10 min) - List out Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants.
Around-the-room sharing (20 min) - The team will discuss the mentioned reasons and looks for ways to make the plan more robust to failures.
Tentative top themes and next steps (10 min) - Documented know issues are prioritized based on the impact and take decisions like when to do it? can we delay the launch?
That is it for this article. I hope you found this article useful, if you need any help please email me at info@nabeelansar.com
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