The Power of Pre-Mortems
How imagining failure is a tool for honest risk taking and stronger teams
In product work, we’re wired to be optimistic. We’re rewarded for it. We like to believe that our product will succeed, our launch will land, and our customers will love it. Optimism feels good. Pessimism doesn’t.
But that bias toward success can work against us. When teams are deeply involved in building something, dissent can become uncomfortable. Raising risks feels like being “negative.” And when everyone is focused on launch day, few people want to talk about what could go wrong.
That’s where pre-mortems come in.
What is a Pre-mortem
The idea of a pre-mortem was created by psychologist Gary Klein and later endorsed by Nobel laureate behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman, who recognized the power of imagining a future where a product launch has failed, and then working backward to identify the reasons.
A pre-mortem is a structured exercise that helps teams counter common biases that cloud decision-making before big initiatives, such as overconfidence, groupthink, and optimism bias. Instead of looking back after failure, you look ahead and ask: It’s six months after launch, and this product launch was an utter and complete disaster. What went wrong?
This framing gives people permission to be honest. It legitimizes dissent. When you say, “Imagine it failed,” you open the door to an honest conversation that would otherwise stay hidden. Kahneman described it as one of the most valuable tools for honest group decision-making because it allows participants to voice skepticism without social risk.
How to Run a Pre-Mortem
Here’s a practical flow:
Gather the group. Bring together the people who know the work best. Make sure everyone understands the product features, project, or upcoming launch.
Assume failure. Set the scene: the launch flopped, and we’re trying to understand why.
Write the story. Ask each person to write a summary of what happened and what led to the failure. Be specific. Avoid vague statements like “dependencies caused delays.” Explain the consequences.
Share and collect. Read summaries aloud or share digitally. Capture all reasons on a board or document.
Cluster and vote. Group similar themes and let everyone upvote. I like to restrict voting: 5 total votes per person—2 for tigers (real threats), 2 for paper tigers (perceived but manageable risks), and 1 for elephants (unspoken concerns). More on that later.
Review and act. Decide what’s actionable, assign owners, and document next steps.
You can run it in-person or remotely, using tools like Coda or Ideaboardz. The key is clarity, participation, and psychological safety.
Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants
I borrowed the Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants framework from Shreyas Doshi. It’s a simple but powerful way to classify risks and make the discussion more actionable:
Tiger: a real threat that could seriously hurt the initiative.
Paper tiger: something others are worried about, but you know isn’t truly risky — you own it and can reassure the team.
Elephant: something everyone knows is risky but no one is talking about.
This framework helps the group separate noise from signal and get to what really matters.
Lessons From My Experience
I’ve run pre-mortems in a few different contexts—and not all of them landed the same way.
Early on, we tried one for a set of platform updates. It wasn’t tied to a specific launch, and while the feedback about process and inter-team dynamics was useful, the pre-mortem format wasn’t the best way to surface it. We would’ve gotten more value from a retrospective or a planning session.
That experience taught me that pre-mortems work best when tied to concrete launches with real stakes; otherwise, people tend to focus on cultural or process issues rather than identifying actual risks.
Later, during a product kickoff, we ran another pre-mortem and quickly realized our requirements needed more clarity, prioritization, and focus. Because we caught it early, we were able to pause, realign, and avoid rework later. This is where pre-mortems shine—surfacing hidden gaps when there’s still time to act.
When we ran a second pre-mortem for the same initiative six months later, the picture had evolved. The team had matured, and collaboration had improved. But one challenge persisted—scope creep in product requirements.
We also discovered that the actions to streamline requirements from the first pre-mortem hadn’t been acted upon. It was a humbling moment. Pre-mortems only create value if their insights are followed by accountability.
To make that second session sharper, I limited voting. In earlier rounds, nearly every piece of feedback received upvotes, making it difficult to distinguish signal from noise. This time, each participant received a total of five votes—two for tigers, two for paper tigers, and one for elephants. That minor tweak forced focus and made it easier to see what truly mattered.
Do’s and Don’ts
Do:
Tie pre-mortems to specific, upcoming launches.
Encourage specificity—talk about consequences, not just categories.
Foster psychological safety and reward dissent.
Assign clear owners for actions that emerge.
Accept that some feedback may be non-actionable—it still signals gaps in alignment.
Don’t:
Run pre-mortems for general topics like “tech debt” or “platform improvements.”
Use them to provoke reactions or vent frustrations.
Treat every risk as equal—prioritize what matters.
Run them once and forget about them; revisit periodically as the project evolves.
Can AI Replace a Pre-Mortem?
Lately, I’ve also been curious about whether AI can do pre-mortems for us.
In a recent Psychology Today piece, Klein explored this question himself—and his conclusion was clear:
AI can generate lists of risks quickly and identify potential blind spots. But it doesn’t understand team dynamics, history, or subtle cues that often cause failure
It also can’t foster the discussion, debate, and accountability that make pre-mortems effective.
Pre-mortems, at their core, are about human judgment and collective sense-making. And that’s still very much our job.
Why Pre-Mortems Matter
Pre-mortems are strategic thinking in practice. They help teams move from blind optimism to informed preparation. They force us to build fallback plans before we need them.
They remind us that optimism alone doesn’t make products succeed; awareness does.
When done right, a pre-mortem helps teams see what could go wrong, align on what matters most, and enter launch day with eyes open instead of fingers crossed.