Premortem

Overview

Gary Klein (2007, HBR): before executing a plan, announce "it is [future date]; the plan failed completely — spectacularly. Take 3 minutes and write the history of that failure." This is prospective hindsight: Mitchell, Russo & Pennington (1989) found that assuming an outcome is certain (not merely possible) increases the ability to generate correct reasons for it by ~30%. It also legitimizes dissent — the confident room is now being asked FOR failure stories, so raising one is contribution, not disloyalty.

"What could go wrong?" invites optimism. "It went wrong — why?" invites memory.

When to Use

• Just before locking a plan, schedule, or design (after planning, before commitment)
• Team/self fully aligned and confident — the exact condition that suppresses doubts
• Irreversible or expensive steps: migrations, launches, deletions, announcements
• NOT as a plan-killer — output feeds mitigation, not cancellation by default

The Procedure