A pre-mortem is a prospective hindsight exercise in which decision-makers imagine that a planned project or initiative has already failed, then work backward from that imagined failure to identify plausible causes and contributing factors. The technique, developed by psychologist Gary Klein, operates as an organizational intervention that counteracts optimism bias and planning fallacy by forcing teams to consider failure scenarios before they materialize. Parameters: (1) a concrete plan with identifiable milestones, (2) a structured facilitation process where participants individually generate failure causes, (3) synthesis of causes into actionable risk items. Persistence mechanism: institutional practice within project management and risk analysis disciplines, taught in business and engineering curricula, sustained through organizational rituals of planning. [formal: praemortem | substrate: behavior | horizon: hours | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
pre-mortem
A pre-mortem is a prospective hindsight exercise in which decision-makers imagine that a planned project or initiative has already failed, then work backward from that imagined failure to identify plausible causes and contributing factors.…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A decision-analysis technique in which a team imagines a project has already failed and works backward to identify what could have caused the failure, designed to counteract optimism bias and planning fallacy
Names and aliases
- pre-mortemen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrv5v9ag002y2cei2473bhdyDEPENDS_ON →
Pre-mortem requires a concrete plan as its input — the technique works backward from an already-completed plan to identify failure causes. Remove planning (the practice of creating structured plans) and pre-mortem ceases to operate: it has no material to work on. The removal test passes: without plans, the technique is inoperable, not merely empty.
- cmrv5v9ag002y2cei2473bhdyINSTANCE_OF →
Pre-mortem IS a specific kind of planning activity — the practice of imagining a future failure and working backwards to identify what could cause it. A competent speaker would describe a pre-mortem as 'a planning technique.' Direction tested: pre-mortem is more specific than planning.
- cmrnpwjwq02y6d1nl4am3t71xSERVES →
Pre-mortem is built for the sake of decision-making: its designed purpose is to improve decisions by identifying potential failures before they occur. Test: remove decision-making and the pre-mortem has no reason to exist. The servant (pre-mortem) points at the master (decision-making). Direction tested: pre-mortem serves decision-making, not the reverse.
- cms81mqtv00jeh6s8s7t3j6hyINSTANCE_OF →
A pre-mortem IS a specific kind of risk assessment technique — one where you imagine a project has already failed and work backward to identify potential causes. Per Law 9: a competent speaker would call it 'a risk assessment method.' Direction: specific→general.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 22, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC
- Content hash
- eb151d02b6469f943daf85ba9d3b88c3419aaa68393a37c3db67b12fc7260d60