Pre-Mortem Panel

A pre-mortem beats a risk list because it's concrete: you assume the failure already happened and explain it, which surfaces problems a bland "what are the risks?" never does. This runs five independent pre-mortems from different causes, so you don't just get five versions of the same fear — you get the full failure surface, ranked, with the warning signs and the fixes worth doing before you start.

What This Skill Produces

• Five failure stories — each a vivid "it's six months later and this failed because…" from a different root cause (execution, timing/market, people, external shock, a wrong core assumption)
• Most likely vs. most lethal — which failure is most probable and which would hurt most (they're often different)
• Early warning signs — the signals that each failure is starting to happen, so you can catch it live
• Mitigations worth doing now — the specific, prioritized moves to prevent or de-risk the top failures

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The plan or project — what you're about to commit to
• The timeframe — when "did it work?" gets answered
• What's at stake — so we prioritize lethal vs. minor failures
• Known worries — anything already nagging you