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Premortem

We usually study failure after it happens.

A plan falls apart, a deadline is missed, a project does not work—and only then do we ask:

“What went wrong?”

But there is an interesting decision-making technique that asks us to move that question much earlier.

It is called a premortem, an idea popularized by psychologist Gary Klein.

A postmortem looks back at something that has already failed.

A premortem asks you to imagine, before you begin, that the failure has already happened.

So suppose you are starting an important project.

Instead of only asking:

“How can I make this successful?”

you imagine yourself six months from now and say:

“It failed. Why?”