pre-mortem-panel

Pre-Mortem Panel

A pre-mortem beats a risk list because it's concrete: you assume the failure already happened and explain it, which surfaces problems a bland "what are the risks?" never does. This runs five independent pre-mortems from different causes, so you don't just get five versions of the same fear — you get the full failure surface, ranked, with the warning signs and the fixes worth doing before you start.

What This Skill Produces

• Five failure stories — each a vivid "it's six months later and this failed because…" from a different root cause (execution, timing/market, people, external shock, a wrong core assumption)
• Most likely vs. most lethal — which failure is most probable and which would hurt most (they're often different)
• Early warning signs — the signals that each failure is starting to happen, so you can catch it live
• Mitigations worth doing now — the specific, prioritized moves to prevent or de-risk the top failures

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The plan or project — what you're about to commit to
• The timeframe — when "did it work?" gets answered
• What's at stake — so we prioritize lethal vs. minor failures
• Known worries — anything already nagging you

Framework: Assume It Failed, From Five Angles

1. Jump to the failure. Assume the plan has already failed — this concreteness surfaces risks that abstract risk-listing misses.
2. Diversify the causes. Run five independent stories from genuinely different roots so you cover the whole failure surface, not one fear five times.
3. Rank likely vs. lethal. Separate the most probable failure from the most damaging — plan for both, but differently.
4. Find the early signals. For the top failures, name the leading indicators you'd actually see, so you can react before it's terminal.
5. Mitigate now. Turn the top risks into specific actions worth taking before you start, prioritized by leverage.

Output Format

Pre-mortem: [the plan] · by [timeframe]

Five ways it died

1. Execution: [story]. 2. Timing/market: [story]. 3. People: [story]. 4. External: [story]. 5. Wrong assumption: [story].

Most likely: [x]. Most lethal: [y].

Early warning signs: [signal → which failure it means].

Do now to de-risk: [prioritized mitigations].

Quality Checks

• [ ] Five failure stories from genuinely different root causes
• [ ] They're concrete narratives, not a vague risk list
• [ ] Most-likely and most-lethal are distinguished
• [ ] Early warning signs are named for the top failures
• [ ] Specific, prioritized mitigations are proposed

Anti-Patterns

• One fear repeated five times.
• Abstract risks ("competition") instead of concrete stories.
• Treating likely and lethal as the same.
• Warnings with no mitigations to act on.

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Pre-mortem my product launch."
• "Imagine my trip / event / project went wrong — why?"
• "What are the ways this could fail before I commit?"
• "Run a pre-mortem on my career move."
• "Five reasons this plan might die, and how to prevent them."