Pre-Mortem

An exercise to enumerate all of the ways a project could go wrong. As a prompt, imagine the project has failed, what happened and why? This helps to uncover possible issues that can be prioritized ahead of time to achieve a more certain outcome.

See also:

  • Thinking in Scenarios Simplifies Scoping

    When scoping out and planning work, an easy way to get a comprehensive understanding of everything that needs to happen is to enumerate every scenario. I find this technique saves a lot of time and clarifies what to do in a way that avoids surprises later.

  • Project Management Is Overlooked and Important

    Being able to lead a project that coordinate multiple people, teams, and organizations is critical for career development. At a certain point, the limiting factor in one’s career is not skill, but the ability to do project management sufficiently well.