Why do it?
You’ve heard of a postmortem to
identify and learn from what went
well and not so well after a project.
A premortem is similar, except
you’re looking into the future, not
the past. The key is to operate under
the assumption that things went
wrong in the project and work
backward to figure out why. This
way, you can anticipate a project’s
biggest threats to success, challenge
your group’s assumptions, and
encourage people to expose any
reservations or potential
weaknesses they might not otherwise voice. Understanding a project’s faults from the
get-go can then help you improve your plan before you start — and save your team from
a painful postmortem.
How to do it:
- Present your team with the hypothetical scenario that the planned
project has failed, and ask everyone to bring several possible reasons
why to the next meeting.
Encourage your team to identify as many causes for failure that they can think of, such
as internal politics, external market forces, team dynamics, process flaws, and timing. - In the meeting, ask everyone to share their reasons.
Have people share them in a way that makes the most sense for your team and project.
If you’re concerned about potentially sensitive ideas, suggest that the group paste them
anonymously in a shared doc. If the team is co-located, you could ask them to write each
one on a sticky note to be categorized later. Either way, be sure to give everyone the
chance to share all of their ideas before opening up the conversation. - Share your own reasons, and be sure to include at least one that is
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For example, you might say, “The project failed because I vastly overestimated the sales
numbers.” Not only does your taking responsibility make it safer for your team to open
up with ideas that implicate you, it also encourages them to think about how they might
personally contribute to the project’s failure - Facilitate an open discussion of what your team sees as the biggest
actual threats to a successful project.
As facilitator of the conversation, draw out ideas and opinions from everyone on the
team, and make sure quieter direct reports have a chance to speak. Focus the discussion
on identifying which threats are more or less likely and which threats have the most and
least potential to be damaging — and why. - Incorporate what you learn from the premortem conversation into the
project plan.
Now that you understand what your team views as the most likely and significant risks
to the project, look for ways to use that information to strengthen the overall plan.
While there’s no guarantee a project won’t fail, raising awareness of the risks from the
outset can help your team respond if and when problems pop up. Or, better yet, help
everyone avoid the problems altogether.
More on promoting team learning:
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