Lou Cripps

What is a premortem in asset management?

By Lou Cripps, FIAM. Published .

Short answer: A premortem is a structured meeting held before a decision is final. The team imagines it is a few years later and the project has failed, then each person writes down why. The reasons become risks to address now, while changing course is still cheap.

Why it works

In a normal review, people defend the plan. In a premortem, they are asked to explain its failure. That small change in the question gives quiet people permission to raise the problem they have been sitting on. It turns "what could possibly go wrong?" from a joke into a work item.

The undo button

Some decisions are easy to reverse. Most infrastructure decisions are not. Once concrete is poured or a fleet is bought, the organization lives with it for decades. Before committing, ask: if this goes wrong, what is our undo button? If there is none, the decision deserves more testing, a smaller first step, or a pilot.

How to run one (45 minutes)

  1. State the decision in one sentence.
  2. Tell the group: "It is five years from now. This failed. Write down every reason why." Five minutes, silent, individually.
  3. Go round the room, one reason each, until all are listed.
  4. Group the reasons. Rate each by likelihood and consequence.
  5. For the top few, assign an owner and an action: prevent it, detect it early, or plan the recovery.
  6. Record the result with the decision.

A red team goes further: a separate group whose job is to argue against the plan. Both tools serve the same end. Find the failure on paper, not in service.

Related

Sources and further reading