Glossary

Pre-Mortem

A pre-mortem is a planning exercise where, before work begins, the team imagines it has already failed and works backwards to explain why. By making it safe to voice doubts up front, it surfaces risks that optimism would otherwise hide — the opposite of a post-mortem held after the damage is done.

A pre-mortem flips the familiar post-mortem on its head. Instead of asking "why did this fail?" after the fact, the team gathers before the work starts, imagines it is some months later and the project has clearly failed, and then asks: why? The technique was popularised by psychologist Gary Klein in Performing a Project Premortem (Harvard Business Review, 2007).

Why it works

Most planning is quietly optimistic — people are reluctant to be the one voicing doubts about a plan everyone seems committed to. A pre-mortem makes pessimism the assignment. Because failure is the premise, people surface concerns they would otherwise keep to themselves, and you get a far richer list of risks while there is still time to act on them.

Turning it into action

A pre-mortem only pays off if the risks it surfaces become managed work. Capture each one in a RAID log with an owner and a date, and the exercise stops being a venting session and becomes early control — catching drift before it has started rather than explaining it afterwards.

Frequently asked

What is the difference between a pre-mortem and a post-mortem?

Timing is the difference. A post-mortem is held after work ends to explain why it went the way it did. A pre-mortem is held before work begins: the team imagines the project has already failed and works backwards to find the causes while there is still time to prevent them.

How do you run a pre-mortem?

Gather the team once the plan is mostly formed, ask everyone to imagine it is months later and the project has clearly failed, then have each person write down why. Pool the reasons, group them, and turn the most plausible into managed risks with an owner and a date. The session usually takes under an hour.

When is a pre-mortem most useful?

It pays off most before a high-stakes commitment that is hard to reverse — a launch, a fixed-price contract, a large hire — and when the team feels confident. Confidence is exactly when doubts go unspoken, which is the gap a pre-mortem is designed to close.

Term

After-Action Review (AAR)

An after-action review is a short, structured debrief that asks four questions: what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, why was there a difference, and what will we change? Originally a US Army practice, it turns experience into improvement — and works best when it's blameless but accountable.

Term

RAID Log

A RAID log is a simple project-management tool that tracks four things in one place: Risks (what might go wrong), Assumptions (what you're taking as true), Issues (what has already gone wrong), and Dependencies (what you're relying on others for). It keeps the sources of drift visible and owned.

Guide

What Is the Drift Tax? The Hidden Cost of Work That Drifts

The drift tax is the invisible, compounding cost of work that slides sideways while everyone stays busy: rework, chasing, last-minute rescues, missed windows, eroded trust and personal stress. It rarely appears as a line on the P&L, which is exactly why it goes unmanaged — and why it quietly grows.

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