PRE-MORTEMS

GO FEVER

EXAMPLES OF GO FEVER

• Apollo 1 Fire
• Shuttle Challenger Disaster
• Cover Oregon

COURAGE

• The antidote to Go Fever
• May seem like you aren't a team player
• Momentum, politics, culture, and ego can fuel Go Fever

Pre-Mortems: a strategy where a team imagines that a project has failed.

PRE-MORTEMS

• Reduce overconfidence
• Makes everyone a team player
• Makes it safe to talk about failure
• Prospective hindsight
• 30% increased ability to identify future outcomes

Pre-Mortem Resources

• Gary Klein - psychologist and inventor of Premortems
• Sterling Wiggins - Aptima.com flight simulator software
• Dave Thomas - forest fire containment

When to have a Pre-Mortem

• After Design Phase (Waterfall)
• After the planning meeting (Agile)
• Half-way through the project
• Before you send firefighters into dangerous terrain

Why not a Retrospective?

• Too late - project/sprint is over
• Improvement is too specific
• Product is what it is

How a Pre-Mortem Works

Pre-mortem Experiment

• Project: IPAy
• Pay for beer on your phone or watch
• Planning meeting is completed

Imagine the Failure

• The Project is over
• The Project Failed
• The failure is very bad
• We are embarrassed

Failure Reason

Share

• Share 1 reason
• Facilitator will compile a list of reasons

One thing you can do

• Choose any failure item
• Choose one where you can make a difference
• 2 minute limit
• Write down 1 thing you can do about it

Share

• Each person share 1 thing they can do
• Facilitator will compile a list

Action items

• Prioritize
• Work on items
• List all other items as risks
• Follow-up

Pre-Mortem Example

Challenges

• Convincing teams to have a Premortem
• Reason for failure is "Asteroid destroys earth"
• Follow-up on action items

References

• Performing a Project Pre-Mortem - Gary Klein (Author)
• Freakonomics Radio - Failure is your Friend

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