Run the premortem

FrameAlternativesConditionsPremortemHearingCommitmentExecutionReviewDashed: big bet only

A premortem asks people to look back from a failure that has not happened yet. Picturing the plan as already failed brings out reasons that "what might go wrong" tends to miss. The Premortem section collects those reasons, path by path.

Two sources of causes

• Midfire runs its own premortem of every path when it generates the conditions. Those causes become the must-not-fail conditions in the Conditions section.
• The people you ask add theirs here, each against the path they were asked to imagine.

Answer when you are asked

The premortem comes before the questions on the conditions, so other people's ideas do not shape yours.

• The prompt sets the scene twelve months from now, with the plan already failed.
• Name the reasons it failed, one per line, with + Add another for more.
• If you marked a condition at risk, it is offered as a cause you can add with one click.
• If nothing comes to mind, say so with the button for no additional causes. That is an answer too.

You see other people's causes for a path only after you have given your own for that path.

As the decision maker

• Read every cause, with who named it and for which path.
• Use Make this a condition on a cause worth guarding against. It becomes a must-not-fail condition, saved with the cause and its author, ready for its own answers and call.
• Add your own premortem with Write yours. It is optional and blocks nothing; writing it before reading the others keeps it your own view.
• Pick another path from the heading to read that path's causes.

If nobody has been asked yet, the section says so. Asking people is how the premortem gets more than one view.