The Fortune Teller's Guide to Project Success: Embrace the Pre-Mortem
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On to the article.
If you've been watching, listening, or reading the news over the last year, you're well aware of the monumental transformations happening on a global scale. From disruptive shifts in industries to groundbreaking innovations, the world is in a state of relentless evolution. The driving force behind these remarkable changes? Technology.
It comes as no surprise that entire business models are being upended, long-term strategies are being rewritten, and job roles are undergoing radical transformations. In the face of such profound change, it's natural to feel a sense of apprehension and perceive these shifts as inherently risky.
To make matters worse, projects as a whole fail at an alarming rate. Even though there are signs of improvement, over 30% of projects still fail to meet the goals they were intended to at the start of the initiative.
In light of the negative side of change, it's essential to recognize that transformation doesn't have to be a scary endeavour. With meticulous planning, effective leadership, and the right arsenal of tools, change can be navigated with relative ease. And among these tools, one stands out as a true collaborator and fortune teller—a tool capable of illuminating potential pitfalls before they materialize. This formidable ally is none other than the pre-mortem technique.
Created by Gary Klein in the early 2000s, the pre-mortem technique has become a staple for agile projects around the world. While its application in agile has been tremendous, I’m here to show you how the pre-mortem has a worthy seat at the table during the start of any major change initiative as well.
Expect to uncover the following four elements that will revolutionize the way you lead your teams and navigate change:
Unlocking the Pre-Mortem Technique: Peer into its essence and unveil the myriad benefits it brings to your projects.
Illuminating Use Cases: Learn how to identify the perfect scenarios for pre-mortem sessions and prepare your team for a proactive journey of exploration.
Guiding the Pre-Mortem Session: Discover expert techniques to facilitate powerful brainstorming sessions, harnessing the collective wisdom of your team to foresee potential risks and devise effective mitigation strategies.
The Path to Success: Embrace a culture of continuous improvement as we explore how to monitor, iterate, and enhance your projects based on the insights gained from the pre-mortem session.
With the stage set, the spotlight is on you as we delve into the heart of the pre-mortem technique and empower you with the knowledge and skills to lead your teams through the transformative landscape that lies ahead.
Unlocking the Pre-Mortem Technique
Most of my readers have a solid understanding of the pre-mortem's more popular cousin, the post-mortem (more widely known as a retrospective). Which is an exercise of reflection that looks back at what worked well for a project and what didn't. Ultimately, the goal is to come to a consensus around what was learned with the hopes this can be applied to future initiatives. History does repeat itself, after all.
The pre-mortem, on the other hand, pivots from reflection to prediction. In a nutshell, the pre-mortem technique is a proactive strategy that brings subject matter experts together to try to identify how this project could fail. It provides a structured framework where all stakeholders anticipate potential risks, challenges, and pitfalls that may befall the initiative. All of this happens before a project begins to pick up steam, giving change leaders the opportunity to get a leg up on any issues that may come their way.
I'm a huge fan of staying lean when it comes to meetings, and I'm usually one of the last to suggest introducing something new. The pre-mortem session is such a valuable addition that even I recommend leading one when you predict the stakes to be high.
Yes, pre-mortem’s are widely beneficial, especially for these reasons:
Stakeholder Alignment: No one individual has the capacity and the intellect to uncover all potential risks. And as we've come to learn from change, alignment becomes one of the more important elements to get right. The pre-mortem accomplishes this by getting the right people together in a room (virtual or otherwise) to collect a diverse set of risks through transparent and open communication. The approach encourages diverse perspectives and enables stakeholders to voice concerns, insights, and suggestions. This collaborative environment fosters stakeholder alignment and increases the likelihood of shared goals, reducing the chances of misunderstandings or conflicts down the line.
Improved Decision-Making: The pre-mortem exercise works best when stakeholders collectively pull their experiences together to list out what could go wrong from multiple angles. In essence, the pre-mortem can be thought of as a brainstorming exercise that encourages critical thinking and analysis. This process prompts each stakeholder to consider different perspectives, evaluate various options, and make more informed decisions. By identifying potential pitfalls and developing preventive measures, change leaders and project managers can make proactive choices that steer the project toward success.
Proactive Risk Management: One of the most powerful aspects of the pre-mortem technique, is it allows the team to plan for mitigation strategies for risks when the stakes are at their lowest. This creates more effective mitigation techniques as emotions are taken out of the equation. By identifying risks early and developing mitigation strategies, teams can minimize the likelihood and severity of risks, ensuring a smoother project execution and higher success rates.
Adaptability and Flexibility: By exploring failure scenarios in advance, teams are better prepared to adapt and respond to unexpected challenges when they eventually crop up. The pre-mortem exercise promotes flexibility and helps change managers anticipate potential roadblocks, enabling them to adjust project plans, timelines, and resources proactively. This adaptability enhances the initiative's ability to navigate changes and uncertainties effectively.
Team Ownership: You've heard me mention in the past that ownership is one of the surefire ways to reduce conflict and adopt change. The pre-mortem exercise does just that, by fostering team engagement and ownership over project outcomes. By involving team members in the process of envisioning failure scenarios and brainstorming preventive measures, they feel a sense of responsibility and commitment to project success. This increased engagement leads to higher motivation, collaboration, and accountability among team members, driving project performance
With the definition and benefits outlined, let’s now explore the types of initiatives pre-mortem’s excel at and how to fully prepare for the session that follows.
Illuminating Use Cases
When embarking on a business transformation initiative, it’s crucial to assess the level of risk involved. While it’s impractical to identify every potential risk and develop detailed mitigation plans upfront, having a broad understanding of the risks can help determine whether additional exercises, such as the pre-mortem, are necessary. The objective is to include only meetings that provide direct value to stakeholders and the company as a whole. To assist in this evaluation process, I have developed a simple tool called the project risk evaluator, which can help project managers make informed decisions about conducting a pre-mortem.
The project risk evaluator follows a similar framework as a traditional risk register and consists of the following questions:
How important is this initiative to the short to medium-term goals of the company?
What is the anticipated level of ambiguity associated with this initiative?
What is the level of contribution, influence, and impact that stakeholders will have on this initiative cross-functionally?
How severe are the expected constraints for this initiative (cost, timing, quality, brand, etc.)?
What are the expected levels of internal and external dependencies for this initiative?
Each question requires a rating on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 indicating minimal risk and 5 representing significant risks with long-term implications. A threshold, typically set around 75%, can be applied, indicating that any score above this threshold signifies a risky endeavour where tools like the pre-mortem should be utilized.
If the project risk evaluator indicates that your initiative carries a substantial level of risk, it is advisable to proceed with a pre-mortem session. Now, let's dive into how to effectively prepare for a pre-mortem.
Preparing for the Pre-Mortem Session
The pre-mortem session itself is meant to foster full collaboration and transparent communication. In other words, the session itself is rather easy, especially if there’s a strong facilitator leading the discussion.
However, as a change leader, you understand the importance of preparation to ensure the success of the pre-mortem session. Before booking that meeting and leading that session, you'll want to ensure a few things are covered first.
Prepare Background Information: While no two initiatives are ever the same, there are usually some similarities you can find if you dig hard enough. Speak with project leaders, department leads, and subject matter experts to get an inside scoop on how these projects played out in the past. Review contracts, statements of work, and lessons learned to gain a comprehensive view of what lies ahead.
Identify Your Stakeholders: Stakeholders are diverse and influential in their respective areas. For a comprehensive pre-mortem, gather a broad range of perspectives by involving leaders from similar initiatives, subject matter experts responsible for major deliverables, and department heads. Consider all the areas of the business impacted by the initiative to ensure a holistic representation of viewpoints.
Establish an Environment for Open Communication: Creating an environment that encourages open, honest, and unbiased communication is vital. Set the tone early on by emphasizing that the pre-mortem exercise aims to proactively mitigate risks before they manifest. Discourage the blame game and instead focus on collective problem-solving. Draft some guidelines that emphasize the importance of candid discussions, and include them in the session invitation.
Define Clear Objectives & Scope: Before the pre-mortem session commences, dedicate time to clearly articulate your goals. As the change leader spearheading the project, you likely possess more answers than anyone else. Establish a clear vision of success, aligning it with the project's objectives and desired outcomes. This will enable you to frame risks and challenges in relation to achieving this north star.
With all that prep work out of the way, it’s time to get into the good stuff. Let’s spend a bit of time going through the actual pre-mortem session itself.
Guiding the Pre-Mortem Session
If you've never participated in a pre-mortem session of any kind, I can understand the trepidation and anxiety you may be feeling. After all, we're talking about your project, and you're the one leading the charge. No worries. With the right preparation and understanding, conducting a pre-mortem session can be an enlightening and empowering experience. Let's dig into its 4 components and learn how to run one effectively.
Set the Stage: At the beginning of the session, take a few minutes to outline the project, its key deliverables, and the expected business outcomes. Then, focus on creating an environment of psychological safety, where team members feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and concerns. Emphasize that the purpose of the pre-mortem session is to proactively identify potential risks and challenges, not to assign blame. Encourage active participation and ensure everyone understands the importance of their insights for a comprehensive analysis.
The 3 Key Questions: The meeting facilitator, if you have one, introduces three critical questions to extract a comprehensive list of risks from the stakeholder group. These questions serve as the catalyst for identifying potential failure points:
Looking into the future, imagine that our project has failed to achieve its objectives. What are the primary reasons you believe could have led to this outcome?
Considering the project's key stakeholders, both internal and external, what are the most significant obstacles or roadblocks that could impede its success?
From what we know so far, what are the critical gaps or limitations that could hinder the project's progress and ultimate success?
Encourage team members to share their perspectives and insights freely. If the initial risk identification seems superficial, dig deeper by asking follow-up questions on key topics such as resource allocation and working capital.
Get Alignment: Now that you've collected a series of risks, it's time to derive value from them. Properly segment and prioritize the risks, and most importantly, enable your project teams to take true ownership of them. The facilitator helps the team identify common themes, patterns, and areas of agreement. Foster active listening and constructive dialogue, allowing participants to build upon each other's ideas, refine concepts, and develop a shared understanding of the potential risks and challenges. The goal is to create collective awareness and alignment regarding the failure points that need attention.
Brainstorm Preventative Measures: This is where the true value of the pre-mortem session comes to light. Encourage participants to think creatively and suggest practical strategies, actions, and contingency plans that can mitigate the prioritized risks before the project even begins. Be sure to monitor that the atmosphere remains non-judgmental and inclusive, promoting the free flow of ideas. The brainstorming session aims to capture a wide range of preventive measures, leveraging the collective expertise and insights of the team. The outcome is a set of actionable and well-considered preventive measures that enhance the project's resilience and increase the likelihood of success.
These sessions can be meaty and last between 60 to 90 minutes. It's crucial not to lose any of the valuable data generated during the pre-mortem session. Utilize a pre-mortem template during the session to capture all the identified risks and preventive measures uncovered. This template can be monitored and modified throughout the initiative as new risks emerge or existing ones are mitigated.
The Path to Success
Congratulations. You now have a comprehensive view of the future for your initiative, which undoubtedly better prepares you for potential challenges that may arise.
Good leaders often stop at this point, but the very best leaders go a few steps further. In fact, you can consider this just the beginning of your journey.
As your project progresses, you are well aware that things will inevitably change. Risks that were uncovered early on may transition into actual issues, and new challenges may emerge.
This is where you have the opportunity to truly shine. I highly recommend integrating the following components into your approach to managing business transformation projects and change initiatives:
Capture & Document Findings: As new issues and risks arise, remember to incorporate them into your risk register or any other monitoring system you use. Take the time to compare these new findings with what was identified during the pre-mortem session. Were you on point with your initial assessment? Excellent! If not, dig deep to understand the root cause of any missed risks. Remember, this is not about assigning blame but about learning and continuously improving.
Communicate Findings: Don't keep all the identified risks and issues to yourself. Share updates with your team and stakeholders as they arise. Transparency and proactive communication are excellent traits of effective change leaders.
Prioritize and Focus: Collaborate with your teams to identify which risks and issues require special attention. Consider whether these risks pose threats or opportunities to the desired business outcomes of the initiative. Use this assessment as a benchmark for prioritization.
Foster a Culture of Learning: Embrace the role of both a student and a teacher. By identifying new risks and challenges and developing best practices to navigate through them, you gain valuable knowledge that can improve the organization when similar situations arise in the future.
Embrace Adaptability: The world is constantly evolving, and so are your projects. Cultivate agile thinking by embracing the ability to pivot your strategy, plans, or roadmap when necessary. The road to success is winding and filled with obstacles, and you are the guiding GPS that can navigate the way.
What Does Your Future Look Like?
I'm a huge fan of the pre-mortem technique, and it has helped me lead some of the toughest transformation projects worldwide. After reading this article, I hope you become a fan too. Give it a try on your next big change initiative and see how it gives you a detailed view of the future.