Unfortunately, the human brain is wired to ignore worst-case scenarios to maintain psychological safety. The pre-mortem method works in the opposite way of a post-mortem medical examination, which identifies the causes of death after the fact. In a pre-mortem, you analyze the “death” before it happens. This helps you identify upcoming threats and weaknesses early.
This decision-making technique, developed by scientist Gary Klein, encourages teams to imagine that a project has already failed and then analyze why. It has been proven to save millions of dollars, time, and energy.
It is usually done in teams so,
# It is strongly recommended to do this with your team — the people whose actions directly influence the success of your startup.
Here are the steps:
1. Imagine you failed.
2. Fast-forward to the failure and list all the reasons why your current idea or relationship might fail.
3. Share your findings with your team and begin a discussion.
4. Develop a contingency plan — work together to remove or minimize the risks behind each potential cause of failure.
Being overly optimistic carries the same risk of failure as being overly pessimistic. It is always easier to prevent a disease than to cure it.