Imagine your decision has failed, then explain why; it surfaces risks that optimism hides.
Why imagined failure works
When a team has agreed on a plan, people stop looking for its weaknesses. Doubters stay quiet because they don't want to seem negative or disloyal. The psychologist Gary Klein designed the pre-mortem to fix this: before the decision is final, the team imagines that it has already failed and explains why.
| Usual risk discussion | Pre-mortem |
|---|---|
| “What could go wrong?” | “It is two years from now. It failed. What happened?” |
| Raising a risk feels like opposing the plan | Explaining the failure is the task |
| The loudest or most senior voices dominate | Everyone writes reasons alone first |
| Vague worries | Specific stories: who, what, when |
Klein's approach, described in the Harvard Business Review in 2007, draws on research showing that imagining an event has already happened makes people better at explaining why it might happen.
Running a pre-mortem in 45 minutes
- Set the scene (5 minutes). Describe the plan. Then say: “Imagine it is two years from now. The plan has failed, clearly and painfully.”
- Write alone (10 minutes). Each person writes every reason they can think of for the failure. No discussion yet.
- Share round the table (15 minutes). One reason per person per round, starting with the most junior, until all are listed.
- Pick the biggest (5 minutes). Each person marks the three reasons they think most likely or most damaging.
- Plan the response (10 minutes). For the top reasons: how to prevent it, how we'd see it coming, who owns it.
Keep the original sheets. They are a record of the team's worries at the time, useful when you review the decision later (Chapter 9), and they often show who saw a problem coming.
What pre-mortems usually find
The reasons people give tend to fall into a few groups. Checking each group makes sure nothing obvious is missed.
| Group | Typical reasons for failure |
|---|---|
| Demand | Customers came more slowly; the main client left; a rival opened nearby |
| Execution | Construction ran late; costs overran; the system went live with errors |
| People | The project leader left; the team was stretched; skills were missing |
| Money | Cash ran short; borrowing cost more; a customer paid very late |
| Outside events | A new rule; fuel prices; floods; a slowdown |
| Our own assumptions | We assumed 85% occupancy because the broker said so |
Turning reasons into actions
A pre-mortem that ends with a list of worries has wasted everyone's time. For each of the top reasons, agree three things.
| For each top reason | Question | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Prevention | What can we do now to make it less likely? | Sign an anchor client before building |
| Early warning | What would we see first if it started happening? | Fewer than 5 enquiries a month |
| Response | What will we do if we see it? | Delay phase 2; sublet space |
| Owner | Who watches it and acts? | Business development head |
Some reasons will change the decision itself: a different site, a smaller first phase, a later start. That is the pre-mortem working, not failing.
Pragati's warehouse pre-mortem
Eight people, including the operations head, the finance head, two depot managers and an outside adviser, spent 45 minutes imagining that the warehouse had failed. They wrote 37 reasons. The five most marked:
| Reason for failure | Marked by | What Pragati did |
|---|---|---|
| The park filled slowly; the warehouse sat half empty | 7 of 8 | Lease first; sign anchor clients before building |
| Monsoon flooding on the access road | 5 of 8 | Site B dropped; drainage check for the others |
| Management stretched: same team running three warehouses | 4 of 8 | Hire a warehouse manager first |
| Costs overran by 30% | 4 of 8 | Fixed-price contract; 10% contingency |
| The main client moved to its own warehouse | 3 of 8 | Three-year contracts; no client over 30% of space |
The biggest effect was a change of mood: the team stopped defending the plan and started improving it.
Questions from the worksheet: Pre-mortem sheet
Imagine it is two years from now and your decision has failed.
- The decision, and the date we imagine looking back from
- Reasons for failure, written alone first
- The top five, after marking
- For each: prevention, early warning, response, owner
- What we will change in the decision itself
What to remember
- Imagine the decision has failed and explain why; it surfaces hidden risks.
- Write alone first, share round the table, mark the biggest, plan responses.
- Feed the top reasons into your risk register and, where needed, change the decision.
- Pre-mortem
- Imagining a decision has failed and explaining why, before committing.
- Early warning
- A sign that a risk is starting to happen.
- Pre-parade
- Imagining great success and asking what had to go right.
This article is adapted from the book. Examples marked “Example” use invented names and numbers; company stories are based on public sources listed in the book. For general learning; use your own judgement for your situation.
