| name | pre-mortem |
| description | Assumes a project has already failed, works backward to identify the top causes, scores them by likelihood and impact, and outputs a mitigation plan. Use when starting a new project, before a major launch, evaluating risky decisions, or when the user says "pre-mortem", "what could go wrong", "risk analysis", "failure modes", "red team this plan".
|
Pre-Mortem
Assume the project has already failed. Work backward to find out why.
Workflow
-
Gather context — Read the project description, plan, or doc the user provides. If a vault path is given, read it. If the user describes the project verbally, capture the key facts.
-
Generate failure scenarios — Imagine it is 6 months from now and the project has failed catastrophically. Generate 8-12 distinct failure causes across these categories:
- Technical — architecture gaps, scaling limits, dependency risks, security holes
- Execution — timeline, staffing, skill gaps, coordination failures
- Market/External — competition, regulation, user adoption, economic shifts
- Organizational — stakeholder alignment, funding, priority shifts, team morale
-
Score each cause — For each failure cause, assign:
- Likelihood (1-5): How probable is this failure mode?
- Impact (1-5): If it happens, how severe is the damage?
- Risk Score = Likelihood × Impact (1-25)
-
Rank and filter — Sort by risk score descending. Present the top 5-8.
-
Mitigation plan — For each top risk, provide:
- Early warning signal — What would you see first if this is happening?
- Mitigation action — Concrete step to reduce likelihood or impact
- Owner suggestion — Who should own this mitigation?
- Deadline heuristic — When should this be addressed relative to project timeline?
Output Format
## Pre-Mortem: [Project Name]
**Scenario**: It is [date + 6 months]. The project has failed.
### Top Risks
| # | Cause | Category | Likelihood | Impact | Risk | Early Warning |
|---|-------|----------|-----------|--------|------|---------------|
| 1 | ... | Technical | 4 | 5 | 20 | ... |
### Mitigation Plan
#### Risk 1: [Cause]
- **Signal**: ...
- **Action**: ...
- **Owner**: ...
- **By**: ...
Vault Integration
If the user has an Obsidian vault, save the output to:
vault/decisions/pre-mortem-[project]-[YYYY-MM-DD].md
Add frontmatter:
---
type: pre-mortem
project: [name]
date: [YYYY-MM-DD]
top_risk_score: [highest score]
tags: [pre-mortem, risk, project-name]
---
