Most people understand what a post-mortem is - a debrief where you examine something after it has already happened to find out why it succeeded or failed.
Projects usually end with post-mortem so that lessons learned can be applied for the next projects and people avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
The problem with post-mortem is that it's too late and it comes with a lot of finger-pointing.
Instead of doing post-mortem at the end, why not do a pre-mortem at the beginning?
Sounds confusing?
Here is how it’s done.
Start with an assumption that the project doesn’t go well, it fails in some way or it doesn’t fulfil the promise one year down the line.
What are the things you did that made it fail?
List every realistic cause of failure you can foresee.
If you can anticipate them in advance, you have a much better way and a much better chance of planning to not have those things happening.
Think of the pre-mortem as an inversion tool that leverages the power of negative thinking.
Instead of asking yourself how to find a successful solution, consider how to avoid failure.
Many hard problems are best solved when they are addressed backwards.
It's a sobering, eye-opening exercise.
Once you frame it this way you'll reap several benefits.
One, coming up with all possible reasons for the project’s spectacular flop forces you to define what exactly failure is and what exactly success is.
Two, projects fail at a spectacular rate and the pre-mortem creates a safe place for everyone to express their reservations without sounding like naysayers.
Three, it means the people who do have dissenting opinions are represented in the planning.
As mentioned by Daniel Kahneman, “The beauty of the pre-mortem is that it is very easy to do...it's a low-cost, high-payoff kind of thing."
Whatever problem you are facing, always consider the opposite side of things.
Fix the roof while the sun is shining.
P.S. Like what you’re reading here? Well, you have three choices really.
1. Get more stories straight to your inbox. Subscribe in the page footer below.
3. When you are ready to level up, hire me.
Comments