Premortem Versus Postmortem

All of you are no doubt familiar with the painful process of conducting a postmortem after a project has failed. There is always that nagging question, “Shouldn’t we have seen this coming?” Frequently, somebody in the group (maybe it was you) did see the potential for failure in advance, but did not have a safe way to share the concern.

Conducting a premortem may help avert a potential disaster.

Premortems look at the causes of failure in advance. It is exciting to have an exuberant group of committed colleagues at the beginning of a project, but irrational exuberance blinds the group to real threats. Premortems allow group members to generate plausible reasons for failures.

A premortem is easy to understand conceptually, and it’s easily lead by a team member. (Premortems can also be unemotionally facilitated by an independent consultant.)

By imagining the project failing, premortems allow the team to trace potential failures backwards to their causes. Premortems are worth the time and effort.

Does your organization, or your client’s organization, use premortems for important projects?

For more information on organizational effectiveness see my book, “Strategic Organizational Change, Second Edition.” And check out all of the free resources on my website www.mikebeitler.com.