Coaching practices for Find Flaws in Your Plan

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Find Flaws in Your Plan, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’m about to commit to this plan and on paper it looks solid, but a quiet part of me suspects I’m too sold on it to see the holes
• When I ask myself "what could go wrong with this plan," I either draw a blank or come up with one vague worry
• My whole plan is a chain where every link has to hold
• I’m about to commit to this plan and I can feel how badly I want it to work
• My whole plan quietly rests on a handful of things I’ve just taken for granted

Practices that may help

1. The premortem (imagine the project already failed)
   Before starting, assume the plan has already failed and ask why — then fix it now.
   Premeditatio Malorum, in Depth
2. Run the basic pre-mortem
   Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
   The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed
3. Design decisions so they work even if some things go wrong
   Ask: does this plan require everything to go right? If so, redesign it.
   Margin of Safety
4. Steelman objections to your own plans
   Before committing to a plan, state the strongest case against it in its most compelling form.
   Steelmanning
5. Map and stress-test your key assumptions
   Before executing, list the assumptions the plan depends on — then ask which ones would kill it if wrong.
   Red Teaming: Stress-Testing Plans Before They Fail
6. Run a pre-mortem before committing to a plan
   Imagine the plan has already failed and ask what went wrong.
   Confirmation Bias: Seeing What You Expect to See
7. Run a pre-mortem from the outside-view perspective
   Imagine the project has failed — then ask which base-rate failure type caused it.
   The Outside View
8. Name the assumptions that must hold for the plan to work
   Every plan rests on assumptions — list them and ask how likely each one is.
   Margin of Safety
9. Run a pre-mortem to interrupt forward narrative construction
   Before committing to a plan, imagine it failed completely — then generate the most plausible story of why.
   The Narrative Fallacy: Why We Can’t Stop Making Stories
10. Run a premortem before committing
    Imagine the project has already failed and work backwards to find why.
    The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.