Have You Premortem Your Plan To Avoid Failure ?
Have You Premortem Your Plan To Avoid Failure ?
You’ve probably heard of a project post-mortem. For those unacquainted with the term, it’s discussion and analysis of what went wrong and how everyone can learn from the experience. While a post-mortem is important, it’s not enough. In order to improve your chances of success, you also need to perform a plan premortem. A premortem is similar to a post-mortem, but it takes place before a project has started. The point of a premortem is to identify potential problems and risks and mitigate them before they become an issue . So this article delight comes in with overall strategies for how to Premortem Your Plan To Improve Chance Of Success.
What Is Premortem ? | Have You Premortem Your Plan To Avoid Failure ?
A premortem is a pre-execution plan exercise that involves visualizing a project or plan failure and evaluating what could be the possible reasons & how to solve those issues. Basically, the goal of a premortem is to identify potential problems and mitigate them. While, a post-mortem is typically conducted after a project to help the team learn from the experience. A premortem is focused on identifying potential problems and mitigating them before they become an issue.
In a premortem you imagine your plan has failed. That’s before it’s even started. It sounds negative, but it’s just a strategy that allows you to work backward from that point of failure to determine what might have caused the failure. The brainstorming exploring the potential failures are kept positive, with the goal being solely the identification of solutions for those issues.
The Benefits Of A Premortem | Why is a premortem important?
Sometimes, you want your plan to succeed so badly that you unconsciously allow your biases to take over and ignore risks. And this can happen to anyone! A premortem allows you to brainstorm without overconfidence shadowing the truth. Premortem helps you gain prospective hindsight. According to research ( reference : https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem ), prospective hindsight increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. it brings new perspectives and provides valuable insights into potential project risks that you wouldn’t otherwise identify.
How To Conduct A Premortem ? | Have You Premortem Your Plan To Avoid Failure ?
So, how do you reap the benefits of a premortem ? It’s simple ! Follow these steps :
Prepare
Take sheets of paper and get relaxed in your chair. Before imagining what went wrong, you first need a general sense of what’s going to happen. Draw a blueprint of the key elements you will need and accomplish during the project. Typically, it contains elements like deliverables, budget, milestones to achieved, goals, key communication with your friends, team member , parents etc.
Imagine A Fiasco
Now, it’s time to actually run the premortem. Imagine that your plan has failed. It isn’t a simple failure either. It is a total, devastating failure. Now, try to come up with as many potential problems as possible. Remember, there’s no such thing as a bad idea when it comes to brainstorming.
Review & Revise
Give consideration to your list of risks and review all the various reasons. Use this information to strengthen the existing project plan. Look for weak points in the project plan that you can strengthen to prevent these failure scenarios. Or, at least you can create some backup for these identified risks. In order to make sure you’re focusing on the right risks, it’s important to prioritize and rank them. You can use a simple scale, such as high, medium, and low, or give them a numerical ranking.
Premortem Vs Postmortem
A postmortem in a medical setting allows health professionals and the family to learn what caused a patient’s death. Everyone benefits except, of course, the patient. A premortem in a setting comes at the beginning of a project rather than the end, so that the project can be improved rather than autopsied. It’s important to note that a premortem and a postmortem are not mutually exclusive. They’re two sides of the same coin, and both serve a valuable purpose differently. A project postmortem is a way to dissect the finished project and see what went wrong, so steps can be taken in the next project to avoid the same results. The difference, obviously, is the premortem is a theoretical failure before the project starts and a postmortem is after the close of the project.
Final Takeaway | Have You Premortem Your Plan To Avoid Failure ?
The Premortem method is one of the tools you can use to get your plans off to a good start and run. Regardless of what techniques you use, it’s crucial that you develop good intuitions to help you anticipate potential problems. The exercise usually tales forty minutes to an hour. It may sound like a long time, but be assured that the time invested in this exercise is well spent and highly productive . Since, it provides a format that supports a productive critique of your plan.
Read also : The Cockroach Theory Of Self-development | Do Not React, But Respond ( https://thebrightdelights.com/the-cockroach-theory-of-self-development-do-not-react-but-respond/ )