Premortem

Find preventable failure before committing to a plan.

Procedure

• Define the decision, deadline, and measurable failure.
• Assume the plan failed; independently list plausible causes.
• Rank causes by impact, evidence, and controllability.
• Assign prevention, warning indicators, and a stop condition.

Questions

• What failure would surprise the plan owner?
• Which warning arrives early enough to act?

Evidence to collect

• Failure definition
• Risk owner
• Observable leading indicator

Limits

• Imagined failures are hypotheses, not incident evidence.

Sources

• Gary Klein, Premortem: Main body

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