Coaching practices for Imagine Failure Before Starting
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Imagine Failure Before Starting, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- After spending an hour imagining all the ways this could fail, I’ve talked myself right out of even starting
- 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
- I’m about to commit to this timeline and on paper it all looks fine, but I have a nagging feeling I’m glossing over the ways it could go sideways because admitting them now feels like talking myself out of it before I’ve even started.
- When I ask myself "what could go wrong with this plan," I either draw a blank or come up with one vague worry
- I’m all-in on this plan and can barely make myself imagine it going wrong
Practices that may help
- 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 - 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 - 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 - Run the basic pre-mortem
Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - 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. - 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 - 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 before you start
Before a project begins, ask: assume it failed — what went wrong?
Hindsight Bias: Why Everything Seems Obvious in Retrospect - 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 - Rate each failure by likelihood and impact
Turn the raw failure list into a prioritized set of risks to mitigate.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed
Related concerns
- 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.
- The Pre Mortem Imagine It Already Failed At Work
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.
- The Pre Mortem Imagine It Already Failed On A Budget
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.
- How To Plan For Failure
Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
Run the basic pre-mortem
- Imagine Project 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.
- 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.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.