| name | pre-mortem-risk-mitigation |
| description | A proactive risk assessment framework to identify and neutralize project threats before they manifest. Use this at the start of high-stakes initiatives, 2-4 weeks before a major product launch, or when a team is hesitant to voice concerns about a strategic direction. |
The Pre-Mortem is a strategic ritual designed to extract critical insights from a team before a project fails. By shifting the perspective from "What might go wrong?" to "It has already failed; why did it happen?", you bypass the social pressure of optimism and create psychological safety for honest critique.
The Core Prompt
Start the session with this specific hypothetical scenario:
"Imagine it is six months from now and this project/launch has been an absolute disaster. Everyone is looking for someone to blame. Working backwards from that failure, what exactly went wrong?"
The Shared Vocabulary
Use these specific categories to help the team label their concerns:
- Tigers: Real, lethal threats that will kill the project if not addressed (e.g., "The API cannot handle 10x load").
- Paper Tigers: Seeming threats that people worry about, but are not actually dangerous or likely (e.g., "A competitor might launch a similar button").
- Elephants: The unacknowledged reality or "elephant in the room" that everyone sees but no one mentions (e.g., "We are assuming users will do PR for us, but we have no marketing budget").
The Step-by-Step Workflow
1. Preparation and Invites
- Group Size: For large launches, run two separate sessions: one for Product/Engineering and one for Go-to-Market (Sales, Support, Marketing). For smaller projects, run one cross-functional session.
- Stakeholders: Ensure every person involved in the "doing" of the project is present, especially junior members who often see ground-level risks.
2. Silent Brainstorming (10-15 Minutes)
- Provide a shared document or digital board.
- Have participants list their Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants silently.
- Constraint: Ask each member to identify at least one of each.
3. Review and "The Scariest Tiger" Vote
- Go around the room and have each person briefly explain their entries.
- The Voting Twist: Ask everyone to vote on the Tiger they find most terrifying that they did not write themselves. This forces the team to look beyond their own silos.
4. Categorization and Action Plan
- As the lead, group the Tigers by theme (e.g., Technical, Adoption, Interpersonal).
- Assign an owner to every "Lethal Tiger" identified.
- Differentiate between risks to be "mitigated" (taken off the table) and risks to be "monitored" (tracked via metrics).
Examples
Example 1: New Marketplace Feature Launch
- Context: A team is launching a new flexible payment system for marketplace sellers.
- Input: The prompt "It's six months later and we've had a massive seller exodus."
- Tigers identified: "Customer service response time is 48 hours for payment issues."
- Application: The team realizes the support staff hasn't been trained on the new dashboard.
- Output: An action item to create a support training module and a "hotline" for payment-related tickets for the first 30 days.
Example 2: Infrastructure Migration
- Context: Migrating a legacy database to a new cloud provider.
- Elephant in the room: "The lead engineer on this is leaving in two weeks, and they are the only one who knows the custom scripts."
- Action Plan: Immediate knowledge transfer sessions and documentation of the scripts before the lead's departure.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- Lacking Psychological Safety: If the leader is defensive, people won't share "Elephants." Start by sharing your own "Lethal Tiger" first to set the tone.
- The "One-and-Done" Mistake: Identifying risks but never following up. The Pre-Mortem must result in a prioritized action plan that is reviewed in weekly syncs.
- Confusing Paper Tigers with Tigers: Spending too much time "solving" Paper Tigers (minor risks) because they are easier to fix than the real Tigers. Use the voting mechanism to stay focused on the lethal threats.
- Waiting Too Long: Running a Pre-Mortem the day before a launch is just a "Post-Mortem with extra stress." Run it early enough to actually change the roadmap or resource allocation.
