Project planning technique where teams imagine the project has already failed and work backward to identify risks. Research shows it increases accurate risk forecasting by 30%.
Pre-mortem analysis is a project planning technique developed by psychologist Gary Klein where teams imagine a scenario where a project has already failed, then work backward to identify the factors that could lead to that failure. This proactive approach helps teams anticipate and mitigate risks before they occur.
Unlike a post-mortem (which analyzes failure after it happens), a pre-mortem assumes failure will happen and asks "Why?" This mental time travel helps overcome optimism bias and surfaces risks teams might otherwise overlook.
Research suggests that mentally transporting to the future increased the ability to accurately forecast risks by 30%.
Ideally conduct 1-3 months before project launch, allowing sufficient time to address identified issues.
Facilitator explains: "It's [date 6-12 months from now]. Our project has failed spectacularly. It's a complete disaster."
Each team member independently writes down reasons for the failure:
Round-robin sharing:
Group similar failure reasons:
Rank risks by:
For top risks, create action plans:
Loading more......
Team & Resources:
Communication:
Technical:
External:
Adapt for individual planning: "It's one year from now. I completely failed at [goal]. Why?"
Opposite approach - imagine wild success: "It's one year from now. We exceeded every goal. How?"
Run both for balanced perspective:
Skipping It: "We don't have time" - but finding time now prevents disasters later
Superficial Analysis: Stopping at obvious risks, missing subtle ones
No Follow-Through: Identifying risks but not creating mitigation plans
Defensive Posture: Team members getting defensive about potential failures
Ignoring Outliers: Dismissing "unlikely" scenarios that could be catastrophic
One and Done: Not revisiting as project evolves
Especially valuable for:
Pre-Mortem:
Post-Mortem:
Digital:
In-Person:
How to know if pre-mortem was effective: