Coaching practices for We're About to Kick Off Something New and Everyone Has Private Hunches About What It'll Take to Pull Off but No One Says Them Out Loud Until It's Gone Wrong and We're Picking Apart Who Dropped the Ball
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For We're About to Kick Off Something New and Everyone Has Private Hunches About What It'll Take to Pull Off but No One Says Them Out Loud Until It's Gone Wrong and We're Picking Apart Who Dropped the Ball, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- We’re about to kick this off and everyone’s upbeat, but I have a quiet feeling there are ways this falls apart that nobody wants to say out loud while we’re all still excited.
- We’re about to kick off something new and everyone has private hunches about what it’ll take to pull off
- Whenever my team sits down to spot risks, the most senior or loudest person says the first thing and suddenly everyone’s nodding along to the same two concerns
- 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.
- 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
Practices that may help
- 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 - Use feedforward to align team members on goals before projects begin
At the start of a project, invite feedforward on how to succeed — before any performance to critique.
Feedforward: Future-Focused Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior - Write reasons independently before discussing
Everyone records failure causes alone first, so the room doesn’t converge too soon.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - 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 - 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 - 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 - Frame uncertain work as learning
Before starting a challenging project, name it explicitly as an experiment where mistakes generate information.
Psychological Safety in Teams - Black hat: identify risks and why something could fail
Apply the most rigorous critical scrutiny to the idea — the black hat is the voice of caution and evidence-based pessimism.
Six Thinking Hats, Made Practical - Pre-mortem your personal goals
Apply the technique solo to a habit, project, or life decision.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed - Run the basic pre-mortem
Assume the plan failed, then have everyone write down why.
The Pre-Mortem: Imagine It Already Failed
Related concerns
- When Hindsight Bias Pre Mortem Analysis
Before a project begins, ask: assume it failed — what went wrong?
Run a pre-mortem before you start
- When Psychological Safety Teams Framing Work As Learning
Before starting a challenging project, name it explicitly as an experiment where mistakes generate information.
Frame uncertain work as learning
- When Six Thinking Hats Black Hat Caution
Apply the most rigorous critical scrutiny to the idea — the black hat is the voice of caution and evidence-based pessimism.
Black hat: identify risks and why something could fail
- How To Avoid Project Failure
Imagine the project has already failed and work backwards to find why.
Run a premortem before committing
- 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.
- The Pre Mortem Imagine It Already Failed With My Team
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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