decision-premortem

Imagine a decision has failed spectacularly and work backwards to identify what went wrong, surfacing risks and failure modes before they happen. Use when: (1) asked to anticipate failures, imagine a plan has failed and work backward, or identify risks before committing, (2) before decisions involving significant resource commitment or that are difficult to reverse, (3) planning contains critical assumptions that haven't been validated against evidence, (4) before launching new products features or organizational changes with substantial resources committed, (5) for complex initiatives where success depends on multiple factors aligning correctly, (6) the plan or recommendation focuses on success paths without examining failure modes, (7) before presenting recommendations that depend on future outcomes going as expected, (8) for decisions in novel territory where similar initiatives have failed unexpectedly, (9) when the scope of change affects multiple teams systems or external dependencies