As a manager in this dynamic digital age, you’re always on the lookout for strategies to ensure your projects not only meet their goals but exceed them. Here’s a game-changer: the project premortem. While we’ve all heard of postmortems—those often-dreaded sessions where teams dissect what went wrong in hindsight—premortems are the forward-thinking leader's secret weapon. Imagine the power of anticipating pitfalls before they derail your projects. In a world where nearly 70% of complex, large-scale projects face overruns in budget and time, or fail entirely, managers can use a practice to stay ahead.
At its core, a project premortem aligns with the idea of antifragility.
A premortem is a proactive risk management exercise where a team imagines that a project or initiative has failed before it even begins. The objective is to foresee potential problems, obstacles, or challenges that might arise during the course of the project. By doing so, the team can address and mitigate these issues in advance, enhancing the likelihood of the project's success.
Rather than merely being robust or resilient—qualities that allow entities to survive adversity— antifragility is about thriving and growing stronger when faced with chaos and uncertainty.
This is precisely what a premortem sets out to achieve. By asking "What could possibly go wrong?" teams are not just identifying risks to categorise them based on likelihood and impact; they’re preparing to pivot and capitalise on them, which is antifragility's core principle. Additionally, when executed correctly, a premortem can profoundly affect team morale and cohesiveness as it enables those who are knowledgeable about the undertaking and worried about its weaknesses to speak up.
Personally, I love a good approach that allows me not just to pivot at the moment to adjust to what comes at me but also to take a proactive stand to potential opportunities that appear as great challenges or complete killers of my projects. And what else is great? I get to involve my team and create a situation in which they can vocalise potential roadblocks affecting our hard work without hurting their position or career. Usually, it’s rarely a good thing to be the bearer of bad news, but speaking up in this situation shows actual commitment and could boost their perceived performance!
Another great example of how this prospective hindsight could be beneficial in your personal life is described by neuroscientist Daniel Levitin in this TED talk.
👉 Connect with me on Linkedin to share ideas and keep the conversation going!
Maximise your viewing experience! We recommend clicking on the "Full Screen" option while watching the video.
In the video, we deep dive into how to set up a premortem for your team and why you should do it. Here is a quick recap of the key insights recovered:
In the fast-evolving landscape of digital trends and technologies, organisations need to adopt an agile strategic approach.
Premortems empower businesses to foresee and navigate potential challenges, ensuring they stay relevant and competitive. Especially when resources are precious, premortems help optimise time, money, and human capital by preventing avoidable missteps.
Furthermore, in our digitally connected world, where minor oversights can swiftly amplify into PR crises, premortems serve as an essential tool in preempting and managing potential reputational risks.
Using a premortem helps managers make better decisions about resources, time, and strategy. It shows a manager's ability to plan ahead and listen to their team. If problems identified in the premortem come up later, they can be fixed quickly. Successfully handling these problems proves the usefulness of the premortem in teaching and keeping the team accountable.
Watch this interview with Roelof Botha, Managing partner of Sequoia Capital, about how long the company has existed and how the premortem helped this happen.
Premortem VS A risk assessment
A premortem and a risk assessment are both tools used to identify potential challenges in projects or initiatives, but they approach the task differently and serve distinct purposes:
|
Premortem |
Risk assessment |
|
|
Nature and perspective |
This method requires participants to imagine that the project has already failed, and then they work backwards to identify potential reasons for that failure. It's a hypothetical, future-oriented exercise |
This is a systematic process to identify and evaluate risks associated with a project or activity. It focuses on currently known risks and evaluates them based on their likelihood of occurring and their potential impact. |
|
Scope of concerns |
By hypothesising about a project's failure, a premortem often brings to light unexpected or unconventional challenges, blind spots, or unforeseen consequences that may not have been considered in traditional planning. |
It typically catalogues known risks. The focus is often on categorising and prioritising them based on a combination of their probability and the severity of their impact. |
|
Outcome |
The outcome is a set of plausible reasons for potential failure. The process encourages open dialogue and can foster a culture where team members feel comfortable discussing concerns without fear of retribution. |
The outcome is a ranked list of risks along with recommended mitigation strategies. The goal is to allocate resources efficiently to manage or mitigate the most significant risks. |
|
Approach |
It is a more imaginative and narrative-driven approach. It taps into team members' intuition and creativity to anticipate a wide range of potential issues. |
It's more structured and analytical. It relies on data, prior experiences, and established methodologies to assess and quantify risks. |
In essence, while both tools aim to improve project outcomes by anticipating challenges, a premortem is more about broadening the perspective to catch unexpected pitfalls, whereas a risk assessment is about methodically evaluating and addressing known risks.
So, How does a premortem relate to Antifragility?
🚀 Proactive approach to uncertainty and stressors: Both concepts advocate a proactive approach to uncertainty. While antifragility encourages systems to be built in a way that they thrive on chaos and uncertainty, a premortem helps identify and prepare for these uncertainties ahead of time.
🤓 Learning from failures: Antifragile systems learn and grow from setbacks. A premortem, by envisioning a project's failure from the start, ensures that the team learns from hypothetical failures even before they embark on the project.
💪 Resilience and robustness: Antifragility goes beyond resilience (which simply withstands shocks) by leveraging challenges for growth. A premortem contributes to this by helping teams not just prepare for potential pitfalls (resilience) but also adapt strategies that might turn potential failures into advantages (antifragility).
And How does this add to the Psychological safety within my team?
👓 Shared vision and ownership: Premortems promote equal participation from all team members, ensuring everyone feels valued. This collective approach fosters unity and joint responsibility over potential challenges and triumphs.
🧘 Reducing anxiety and uncertainty: By identifying potential challenges in advance, teams reduce anxiety. The supportive environment of discussing possible pitfalls together reassures team members they're not alone in their concerns.
🗣️ Open communication: The premortem setting encourages team members to share concerns without fear, enhancing team cohesion. It also dispels assumptions, ensuring everyone understands the project's potential challenges. It's a space where imagining failure is not only accepted but expected.
🧑🔧 Empowerment through problem-solving: Shifting from identifying problems to finding solutions fosters a proactive attitude. Celebrating each addressed concern boosts morale.
🔗 Strengthened trust: Addressing potential issues as a united team builds camaraderie and trust. Open discussions ensure transparency and reinforce that there are no hidden issues.
📡 Skill and Knowledge Sharing: The process draws from every team member's expertise, allowing for a rich learning experience and recognition of each member's strengths.
After understanding the nuances of premortems in the digital landscape, it's time to put that knowledge into action. This exercise is your roadmap to crafting projects that don't just survive, but thrive amidst challenges.
⚙️ Download your Premortem Action Plan Spreadsheet and Premortem Canvas Slide Deck to begin.
Step 1: Set the Stage
After your project briefing, make sure everyone grasps the project's goals, main tasks, and sought-after results. This clarity sets the stage for a fruitful premortem session.
The team leader states the project has "failed" to set the mindset. This approach fosters a unique mental space where team members can freely explore potential pitfalls without the bias of optimism. It's a creative way to challenge the team to think critically and identify potential risks.
Step 2: Brainstrom
In an open discussion, team members are encouraged to think of all possible reasons the project could fail. An atmosphere of psychological safety is essential so that everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts, however unconventional or unlikely they might seem.
Each member shares one reason, going in rounds to capture all potential issues. This structured approach ensures that every voice is heard. Allowing each member to contribute one at a time prevents dominant personalities from taking over the conversation and ensures a more comprehensive list of potential risks.
Step 3: Visual Synthesis
Transfer your brainstormed points onto the provided canvas, using tools like Post-its or digital stickers. This visual aid will help you identify patterns, overlaps, or particularly prominent concerns that might need immediate attention.
Review the identified risks. Are there any that, when flipped, could become opportunities? Some perceived threats, when tackled innovatively, might just be blessings in disguise! This step encourages the team to think positively and innovatively about the identified risks.
Step 4:Mapping priorities
Using the impact-probability matrix on your slide deck, plot each risk. By placing each risk on a matrix that measures its potential impact against its likelihood of occurring, teams can easily see which risks need immediate attention and which are less pressing. This helps in efficient resource allocation.
Step 5: Divide, Conquer, & Monitor:
Finally, break out the Action Plan Spreadsheet. Assign each risk or opportunity to a team member or group. This isn't just about pinpointing responsibilities—it's about laying out clear next steps, potential blockers, and consistent check-ins.
🤖 Bonus: ChatGPT Prompts
If team members are unavailable, or you just want some extra input after the premortem, you can use these prompts, so ChatGPT can help you:
📚 "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman: While the book doesn't specifically address premortem analysis, its exploration of human cognition and decision-making is highly relevant to the rationale behind conducting a premortem
🎥 "Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman”- Speech on premortem to eliminate thinking biases.
📚 "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Taleb introduces the concept of "antifragility," which describes systems that thrive and grow stronger under stress and change, rather than merely surviving or breaking.
🎧 "The Tim Ferriss Show" with Roelof Botha- on Investing with the Best, Ulysses Pacts, The Magic of Founder-Problem Fit, How to Use Pre-Mortems and Pre-Parades, Learning from Crucible Moments, and Daring to Dream
🤓 Case study by McKinsey: Premortems: Being smart at the start
🧰 Extra templates for your project software:
A premortem is a proactive risk management technique where teams imagine a project's failure even before its commencement to identify potential pitfalls.
This concept aligns with antifragility, a principle about thriving amid chaos and uncertainty by anticipating potential setbacks and preparing strategies to leverage them positively.
Conducting a premortem fosters a culture of psychological safety within teams, encouraging open communication, shared vision, and collective problem-solving.
While both premortems and risk assessments are tools for anticipating project challenges, a premortem takes a more narrative-driven approach, while a risk assessment is structured and analytical.
The practice of conducting a premortem is not merely a theoretical exercise but a valuable tool in today's fast-paced digital environment. As businesses navigate the complexities of modern projects, where even minor oversights can have magnified impacts, tools like premortems become crucial. They empower organisations to be agile, proactive, and innovative, ensuring they remain competitive and resilient. Beyond just business, the principles behind a premortem can be applied to various life scenarios, enabling individuals to plan better and be prepared for unexpected challenges.