Pre-Mortem Analysis Tool: Predict Project Failures

Identify potential problems before they happen by imagining your project has already failed. Our research-backed tool helps you overcome planning fallacy and optimism bias.

Pre-Mortem Process

Step 0: Introduction

A pre-mortem is a strategic planning technique where you imagine that a project has already failed, then work backward to determine what potentially could lead to the failure.

This technique, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, helps identify risks and establish preventative measures at the beginning of a project rather than during a post-mortem after it's too late.

Overcome Cognitive Biases

Pre-mortems help combat planning fallacy, optimism bias, and overconfidence that can lead to project failures.

Research-Backed

Studies show that pre-mortems can increase the ability to identify potential problems by up to 30%.

Academic References

Klein, G. (2007). Performing a project premortem. Harvard Business Review, 85(9), 18-19.
Mitchell, D. J., Russo, J. E., & Pennington, N. (1989). Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2(1), 25-38.
Veinott, B., Klein, G. A., & Wiggins, S. (2010). Evaluating the effectiveness of the PreMortem technique on plan confidence. Proceedings of the 7th International ISCRAM Conference.