PreMortem Method of Risk Assessment

When to use PreMortem Method of Risk Assessment

This framework is most effective before the final approval of a project, during the transition from planning to execution, or when a team is suffering from overconfidence or groupthink.

How PreMortem Method of Risk Assessment works

Facilitators can integrate this method as a 'de-biasing' exercise at the conclusion of a design phase. After a plan is presented, the facilitator leads the group through a structured brainstorming session where participants act as 'coroners' to diagnose the causes of the plan's hypothetical death, followed by a collaborative session to strengthen the original strategy.

Phases of PreMortem Method of Risk Assessment

1. Plan Briefing: The team is briefed on the plan or project so everyone shares the same understanding of what is intended. The facilitator makes sure the plan is concrete enough to imagine failing.
2. Imagining the Fiasco: The facilitator asks everyone to imagine it is some time later and the plan has failed badly. Treating the failure as certain gives people permission to voice doubts.
3. Generating Reasons for Failure: Each person silently writes all the reasons they can think of why the failure happened, in a few minutes. Independent writing surfaces concerns people would not raise in open discussion.
4. Consolidating and Prioritizing Risks: Going around the room, each person shares one reason at a time until all are listed, often starting with the leader. The group then groups and ranks the risks by likelihood and impact.
5. Revising the Plan: The team agrees how to change the plan to prevent or reduce the top risks, with owners. The list is kept and reviewed later to spot early signs of trouble.

Key principles

• Prospective Hindsight: Using the future to better understand the present.
• Psychological Safety: Creating a space where dissent and the identification of flaws are rewarded.
• Cognitive De-biasing: Actively countering optimism bias and the 'planning fallacy'.
• Collective Intelligence: Leveraging the diverse perspectives of the entire team to find blind spots.

Best for

• Strategic Planning
• Project Management
• Risk Mitigation
• Team Alignment

Considerations

• Requires a facilitator who can maintain a constructive tone to prevent the session from becoming overly negative.
• Participants must be encouraged to write down their ideas individually before sharing to avoid social loafing or influence from senior leaders.
• The method is only effective if the leadership is actually willing to modify the plan based on the findings.

Attribution & sources

Developed by Gary Klein, 2007

Primary source

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