Coaching practices for How to Run a Pre Mortem
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Run a Pre Mortem, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I want to look back from the very end of my life and ask honestly what I actually did with my time
- When I ask myself "what could go wrong with this plan," I either draw a blank or come up with one vague worry
- I keep putting off the things I say matter most as if I have unlimited time, and I’m losing days to small grievances and "somedays"
- I’m about to commit real time and money to this plan, and it looks solid
- I’m all-in on this plan and can barely make myself imagine it going wrong
Practices that may help
- The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses. - Write a brief final accounting
Write as if you’re reporting on your life: what did you do with your time?
Memento Mori: Using Mortality Awareness to Focus What Matters - Run the basic pre-mortem
Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - Memento mori as the ultimate premeditation
Premeditate the final loss — your own death — as a clarifier of what actually matters now.
Premeditatio Malorum, in Depth - 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 - 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 - Pair the pre-mortem with a clear success vision
Balance failure analysis with an equally concrete picture of what success requires.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - Combine the pre-mortem with red team pressure
Run a pre-mortem and then ask the red team to find the failure mode the team missed.
Red Teaming: Stress-Testing Plans Before They Fail - Memento Mori: Using Mortality Awareness to Focus What Matters
Memento mori — "remember you will die" — is the Stoic practice of keeping mortality in view as a clarifier: trivial concerns shrink and important ones become urgent when measured against a real deadline. Used well, it sharpens values and action; used badly, it slides into death anxiety. The psychological evidence is genuinely mixed — mortality awareness can produce either defensiveness or value-driven clarity depending on the person and how the awareness is held. - 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
Related concerns
- Premortem Analysis
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses.
- Klein Premortem Technique
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses.
- Planning Premortem
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses.
- Pre Mortem And Adversarial Review
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses.
- Pre Mortem Planning
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses.
- Pre Mortem Technique
A pre-mortem, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, has a team imagine that a plan has already failed and then work backward to explain why — before any work begins. The technique exploits "prospective hindsight": research found that imagining an outcome as a certainty makes people generate more, and more specific, reasons for it, surfacing risks that ordinary risk assessment misses.
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