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Pre-Mortem? Post-Mortem?
A Post-Mortem is commonly a meeting held after a project or product launch has concluded, to analyze the factors of failure and identify lessons learned. However, what if instead of analyzing all issues post-event, we could identify and prevent potential failure factors beforehand? This is made possible by the Pre-Mortem technique.
What is a Pre-Mortem?
A Pre-Mortem is a strategic meeting where the team gathers before the official start of a project or product to predict potential failure factors and devise solutions. Essentially, it involves assuming that the project has already failed and discussing what might cause this failure. Unlike Post-Mortems, the goal of a Pre-Mortem is to prevent problems before they occur.
Through this technique, teams can better understand potential issues before launching a product, and by resolving these issues, they can increase the likelihood of a successful outcome.
Main Advantages of Pre-Mortem
Increased Probability of Success: According to a 1989 study by the University of Colorado, engaging in prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the accuracy of identifying reasons for future outcomes by 30%. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of Pre-Mortems in accurately predicting problems and designing appropriate strategies.
Psychological Safety Among Team Members: Pre-Mortems provide an opportunity for team members to freely express their concerns, enhancing the team’s psychological safety and greatly assisting in aligning the project’s direction across various departments (e.g., engineering, marketing, legal).
Preventing Issues and Inter-Team Conflicts: Pre-Mortems have been utilized by companies like Meta and Instagram, helping to prevent conflicts between teams, improve PR messaging, and identify and resolve scalability issues in advance, thus managing the launch timeline more efficiently.
How to Conduct a Pre-Mortem?
Meeting Preparation: Invite participants from various departments and start the discussion with the question, “If it has failed after launch, what would be the reason?”
Problem Categorization :The goal of a Pre-Mortem is to identify possible reasons for failure, where no idea is too negative or foolish. Concepts such as Tiger, Paper Tiger, and Elephant are introduced to address psychological barriers to discussing seemingly negative or trivial ideas. (Yue Zhao prefers starting randomly rather than beginning with senior members and proceeding clockwise, or using sticky notes for everyone to write down their thoughts before discussing them on a whiteboard). Moderating the pace of discussion is a crucial role for the facilitator.
- Tiger: Serious issues that could hinder the project.
- Paper Tiger: Issues that seem important but are actually not significant.
- Elephant: Potentially important issues that have not been discussed.
Problem Resolution and Owner Assignment: Discuss and design solutions for major Tigers, and assign responsibilities. Additionally, enhance team communication through Paper Tigers and Elephants.
When to Execute a Pre-Mortem?
- Before major product reviews.
- At critical decision points in the project.
- A few weeks before launch.
- When team collaboration issues are felt.
Post-Pre-Mortem Steps
Implement Decided Actions: Proceed with resolving major issues (Tigers) with responsible individuals and regularly check progress.
Maintain Transparency of Results: Share meeting notes and decided risk and resolution plans with the entire team, allowing members who did not participate to review and add concerns.
Continual Monitoring: Adopt terms like Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants into team culture for ongoing discussion of risks.
Conclusion
Pre-Mortems are an extremely useful tool for teams to prevent potential failures and increase the likelihood of product success. Supported by research and practical examples, their effectiveness is proven, and their use in team collaboration and project success is recommended. Consider using Pre-Mortems in future product launches or projects to make the path to success clearer.