Pre-Mortem

Instruct participants to assume the plan has failed.

Explain why. Using Think-Write-Share or a technique like 1-2-4-All, have participants brainstorm all the reasons (reasons, not events) why the plan has failed. If not using 1-2-4-All, consolidate the lists (deduplicate / combine).

Map the Reasons. Create a 2-axis, single quadrant graph with one axis labeled “Degree of Impact” and the other labeled “Probability.” This mirrors the classic table in Risk Analysis. Have participants place each reason on the graph and agree on its position relative to its degree of impact (to what degree did a specific reason for failure contribute to the failure) and probability (what is the likelihood that a given reason might occur).

Identify relations and correlation. Participants identify areas where reasons are related or where they would anticipate a strong correlation between the occurrence of multiple reasons and failure of the plan.

Select reasons to further define. Using dot-voting, have participants select the most interesting reasons to further evaluate. “Most interesting” may be those most probably and impactful, but possibly not (impactful but not likely, for example, or probable while less impactful).

Evaluate the selected reasons further. Possibly leveraging a method like Future Backwards, build a timeline of events for each failure reason to explain how that failure state occurred. These sequences of events will be fictional and imaginary but should be materially relatable to possible concrete futures and the identified failure path.

Revisit the Plan. Based on what was revealed through the Pre-Mortem process, revisit the plan. Determine whether some assumptions are no longer valid, whether a different course of action needs to be leveraged in developing the plan out further, or whether risk mitigation planning and controls need to be implemented to monitor and manage the risks which the Pre-Mortem revealed.