Other Mental Models · OM-31
Before launching a plan, imagine vividly that it has already failed a year from now, and work backward to figure out why — a deliberate reframing that surfaces risks a forward-looking planning discussion routinely misses, because it removes the social pressure to sound optimistic.
A risk-identification technique in which a team, before committing to a plan, is asked to imagine that the plan has already failed at some specific point in the future, and to work backward generating plausible reasons for that failure — reframing the exercise from predicting whether something might go wrong to explaining why it already has, which measurably increases the number and specificity of risks a group identifies.
Developed and named by psychologist Gary Klein, who published the technique in a widely cited 2007 Harvard Business Review article, building on decades of his prior research into naturalistic decision-making and expert intuition under uncertainty.
The Mechanism
Reframing 'what might go wrong' as 'why did this already fail' surfaces risks that direct questioning misses
Klein's research found that the premortem's specific reframing — treating failure as an already-established fact to be explained, rather than a possibility to be forecast — measurably increased the number of risks a team identified compared to conventional forward-looking risk-assessment discussions, largely by removing the implicit social pressure participants feel to sound confident and supportive of a plan the group has already invested effort in and is inclined to want to succeed.
01 · THE TECHNIQUE WORKS BY REMOVING SOCIAL PRESSURE TO APPEAR SUPPORTIVE OR OPTIMISTIC
This is the core psychological mechanism, distinct from simply asking people to think harder about risk
In an ordinary planning discussion, raising doubts about a plan the group has already invested in can feel socially costly, marking the doubter as unsupportive, overly negative, or not a team player — the premortem's framing (the failure is a stated fact to be explained, not a personal opinion to be defended) removes much of this social cost, since generating failure explanations becomes the explicitly assigned task rather than a personal act of dissent.
02 · INDIVIDUAL, INDEPENDENT GENERATION OF FAILURE REASONS BEFORE GROUP DISCUSSION IMPROVES THE RESULT
The specific sequencing of the exercise matters, not just the reframing itself
Klein's recommended version of the technique has each participant independently generate their own list of plausible failure reasons before the group compares and discusses them together — this sequencing avoids the risk of early, vocal opinions anchoring or suppressing other participants' independent thinking, a common failure mode in group brainstorming that a poorly run premortem session can still fall into if this step is skipped.
03 · IT'S MOST VALUABLE WHEN CONDUCTED BEFORE FINAL COMMITMENT, WHILE CHANGES TO THE PLAN ARE STILL CHEAP
The technique's practical value depends on timing relative to the decision, not just its own execution quality
A premortem conducted after a plan has already been substantially committed to, with resources allocated and stakeholders publicly informed, has far less practical value than one conducted while the plan can still be meaningfully revised — the technique's core benefit is surfacing risks while acting on them is still comparatively cheap, which requires deliberately scheduling it early in the planning process rather than as an afterthought.
Where It Fails / Inversion
Where it fails / inversion
A premortem generates candidate failure explanations, but not every generated explanation is equally credible or worth acting on — without a subsequent step to actually evaluate and prioritize the generated risks by plausibility and severity, the exercise can produce a long list of low-value speculative risks that doesn't meaningfully improve the actual plan; the generation step alone is not the complete technique.
How To Use It
Worked example · running a premortem before a major product launch
A team preparing to launch a major new product should hold a session before final commitment in which each team member is asked to independently imagine the launch has failed six months from now, and to write down the most plausible reasons why — the compiled list is then reviewed and the most credible, addressable risks are incorporated into the actual launch plan (additional testing, contingency plans, revised messaging) while the plan can still be adjusted, rather than surfacing the same risks only after a failed launch has already occurred.
How to use it
Before committing to a significant plan, run a premortem: have each person independently imagine the plan has already failed at a specific future point and write down why, before discussing the results as a group — this specific reframing reliably surfaces risks that a conventional forward-looking risk discussion tends to miss, largely by removing the social pressure to sound optimistic about a plan the group has already invested in.
See Also