Run a pre-mortem before committing to a plan

Imagine the plan has already failed and ask what went wrong.

Why it works

A pre-mortem temporarily assumes failure and asks people to explain it, which licenses voicing concerns that confirmation bias and social pressure would otherwise suppress. By framing failure as the already-happened reality, it shifts the question from "might this fail?" (easy to dismiss) to "how did this fail?" (harder to dismiss, produces more concrete failure modes). Gary Klein’s research showed this increased identification of potential problems compared to standard prospective evaluation.

How to do it

1. After finalizing a plan but before committing resources, say: "It is twelve months from now, and this plan has failed. What happened?"
2. Have everyone generate failure causes independently before discussing — prevents groupthink.
3. Collect the list and address each failure mode explicitly, either with a mitigation or with a revised expectation.
4. Do not skip the step because the plan "looks solid" — that confidence is exactly when the pre-mortem is most needed.

Evidence

Klein (2007) found that pre-mortems increased identification of potential problems by about 30% compared to standard prospective evaluation in a controlled study. The technique is now widely used in project management and has replications across organizational settings. (observational)

The 30% estimate is from one study with specific conditions; effect sizes vary by group composition, stakes, and how seriously the exercise is taken.

Sources

• Klein (2007), performing a project premortem, Harvard Business Review
• Klein, G. (2007). Performing a project premortem. Harvard Business Review, 85(9), 18–19.

Common mistake

Treating the pre-mortem as a formality — listing superficial failure modes to check the box, then dismissing them because the team is confident.