By Steve Moran

Premortems are a great way to reduce the risks of big and little failures.

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You wake up in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea that will turn into a big or little initiative. When you wake up in the morning you still remember it, and it still seems brilliant.

You begin talking to your team about it, and as part of that process you even ask for input about what is needed to make it better. And then you ask a harder question: “What could go wrong?” You get some good feedback and refine your plans.

Premortem

If you are willing to do the hard work of conducting a premortem on the project, you will end up with something way better and likely save some real grief along the way. Here is how it works.

The term postmortem comes from the medical field, and it is the process of examining the body of someone who died to figure out what caused the death and what could have been done to save them. It is a kind of brutal exercise, but it is a huge part of what makes medicine and medical care better.

We frequently see postmortems of businesses that have failed in spectacular ways. You have read them. Blockbuster, PalmPilot and BlackBerry, Kodak, Sears, Toys”R”Us. These are important learning lessons.

Here is how you conduct your own premortem: Imagine that you launched the initiative you’re considering and that you and your entire company gave it your all to make it successful, but it is now three years down the road, and it turned out to be a complete flop. It simply didn’t work — a complete waste of time, money, and effort. On reflection, you are sorry you did this project.

Do I have you totally depressed now?

The Magic

The good news is that this is an imaginary failure, not a real one. The final step is to ask yourself and your team to think about what caused this imaginary failure:

  • What was wrong with the idea?
  • What was wrong with how you thought about the need for this initiative?
  • What was wrong with the execution?
  • What was missed in launching the initiative?
  • What could have been done differently?

While this sounds a lot like looking at what could go wrong, it will give you an entirely different perspective and will help you to avoid pitfalls that would otherwise be invisible.