Run the pre-mortem before the project, not after

Most teams hold a post-mortem after a project goes wrong. By then the money is spent and the lessons are mostly for the next project. The psychologist Gary Klein suggested flipping the order.

In a pre-mortem, the team imagines it is a year from now and the project has failed badly. Each person writes down why. Then everyone reads their reasons out loud.

Why it works

In a normal planning meeting, raising doubts feels like disloyalty. The plan has momentum and the person who asks what could go wrong sounds like a pessimist.

A pre-mortem changes the question. Failure is already assumed, so the only job is to explain it. People who had quiet worries suddenly have permission to share them.

You are not asking whether the plan will fail. You are asking for the most likely story of how it did.

How to run one

• Keep it short. Ten minutes of silent writing, then a round where each person shares one reason at a time.

• Start with the most junior voices, so the senior view does not set the tone.

• End with two changes. Pick the risks that are both likely and cheap to address, and change the plan before you leave the room.

What you can borrow

Put a pre-mortem on the calendar for the next decision that is hard to undo. It costs an hour. The post-mortem it replaces usually costs a quarter.