Practice knowledge base
Premortem
A premortem helps the team safely name possible reasons for failure before a project starts and reduce the risks of the decision in advance.
Documentation sections
What it is
A premortem is a short working session held before a project starts or before an important decision. The team mentally moves into a future where the project has already failed and looks for likely reasons. This format legitimizes skepticism: it makes it easier for participants to talk about weak points in the plan, risks in a management decision, and awkward dependencies before mistakes become costly.
When it helps
- The team stays silent about doubts even though the decision looks risky.
- The project is moving quickly, but critical dependencies and constraints have not yet been discussed.
- A management decision has already been made, and people need a safe way to name the risks.
- After previous launches, the team often discovered problems too late.
How to start
- 1 Choose one project or decision where failure would be noticeably costly for the team.
- 2 Assign a facilitator who separates identifying risks from evaluating people and decisions.
- 3 Run a meeting around the question: “The project failed. What was the main reason?”
- 4 Write down the reasons for failure as a list and group them by theme: people, timelines, dependencies, clients, decisions.
- 5 Review the three most likely risks and assign an owner for the next action on each one.
Expected effect
The team gets a legitimate way to voice doubts before the start, and the manager sees weaknesses in the plan earlier. This helps assign risk owners more accurately, remove some blind spots, and reduce the number of late surprises.
Common pitfalls
- The facilitator defends a decision that has already been made, and participants read the meeting as a formality.
- The team makes a long list of fears but does not assign owners for the next actions.
- Participants are asked to criticize the project in front of a manager who usually punishes disagreement.
- The premortem is used instead of proper planning, even though the method only complements plan review.
Further reading
- Article: Gary Klein, Performing a Project Premortem, Harvard Business Review
- Book: Amy C. Edmondson, The Fearless Organization
- Book: Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
FAQ
Who should initiate a premortem?
Usually, it is initiated by the project lead, team lead, or manager responsible for the decision. What matters is that the facilitator can accept criticism of the plan without defending their status.
Can you run a premortem without an external facilitator?
Yes. It is enough to choose a neutral facilitator within the team, explain the rules in advance, and separate discussing risks from looking for someone to blame.
What should you do if people still stay silent?
Start by having everyone write down the reasons for failure individually, then collect the responses without attribution. After that, discuss the themes rather than the names of the people who raised them.
How can you tell whether the meeting was useful?
After the meeting, there should be concrete changes: clarified assumptions, owners for key risks, an updated plan, or a decision to test a questionable dependency before the start.