post-mortems-retrospectives
Guide teams through learning-focused post-mortems and retrospectives using frameworks from 11 product leaders.
- Helps frame exercises as blameless learning opportunities rather than blame-focused reviews, with emphasis on psychological safety and honest sharing
- Covers core principles including pre-mortems with kill criteria, reframing failure as growth, and institutionalizing weekly impact and learnings reviews
- Guides users through structured questioning to surface systemic insights, early missed signals, and actionable learnings that influence future decisions
- Flags common mistakes including blame-focused framing, lack of follow-through, and optimizing scores over learning
Post-mortems & Retrospectives
Help the user run effective post-mortems and retrospectives that drive genuine learning using frameworks from 11 product leaders.
How to Help
When the user asks for help with post-mortems or retrospectives:
- Understand the context - Ask whether this is after a failure, a success, or a routine checkpoint
- Set the right tone - Help them frame the exercise as learning-focused rather than blame-focused
- Structure for insights - Guide them toward formats that surface actionable learnings
- Ensure follow-through - Help them create mechanisms to act on what they learn
Core Principles
Pre-mortems need kill criteria
Annie Duke: "A pre-mortem is only effective if it results in 'kill criteria' - pre-determined signals that will trigger a pivot or shutdown." Identify early signals that a project is failing during the pre-mortem and pre-commit to specific actions if those signals are met.
Reframe failure as growth
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