Why you should try a pre-mortem exercise (before it's too late)

In this post, we will talk about the pre-mortem exercise and how it can help set you up for success.

You may have encountered the “lessons learnt log” before. Most of the time, those well-intentioned documents gather dust in forgotten folders, never to be seen again. 

Instead of waiting until after everything has gone pear-shaped to reflect on what went wrong, why not get ahead of disaster with a pre-mortem exercise?

If you’re about to kick off a new project, launch a product, or start up a team, it’s a perfect time to run a pre-mortem exercise. It might sound a bit morbid, but it works wonders and can have a very positive impact.

You’ve probably heard of a post-mortem, that meeting where everyone gets together to sift through the wreckage, figure out what went wrong, and make a list of “lessons learnt” that (let’s be honest) no one looks at again.

A pre-mortem flips that on its head. Instead of reflecting on failure after it happens, you anticipate it before you even begin.

How to Run a Pre-Mortem Exercise

Step 1: Set the Scene

Ask the team to imagine themselves in the future where everything has gone spectacularly wrong. The product has flopped, customers are furious, the project is in chaos, and the team is on the verge of mutiny. What went wrong?

Step 2: Capture the Chaos
Teams are surprisingly good at imagining doom (some might even enjoy it a little too much). Give them 10-15 minutes to jot down everything that could have contributed to this failure. Sticky notes, digital boards, whiteboards, whatever works best for you.

Step 3: Flip the Script
Yes, this might seem a bit negative, but here’s the magic: Once you’ve identified what could go wrong, you can start figuring out how to stop it from happening, or at least plan how to respond if it does.

Step 4: Prioritise the Risks
One of the biggest pitfalls of this exercise? Ending up with too many sticky notes. If that happens, don’t panic, just create a simple likelihood vs. impact matrix – you can see this in the photo on this page. Focus on the risks that have a high probability and high impact. You don’t need to tackle everything, just the biggest threats.

Why It Works

The pre-mortem exercise is one of my favourite facilitation techniques because it’s quick, collaborative, and (dare I say it) fun. Teams bond over imagining disaster, and more importantly, they gain clarity on how to avoid it.

Worst case? You have an entertaining team bonding session filled with dramatic disaster scenarios.

Best case? You set yourself up for success, dodge major pitfalls, and save yourself a world of stress down the line.

At Outcome Over Output, we teach facilitation techniques that help you lead engaging, high-impact workshops with confidence. The pre-mortem exercise is just one of the many tools in our facilitation toolkit. 

If you want to improve how you run meetings, drive collaboration, and help teams work smarter contact us to learn more about our facilitation course or click here to download our facilitation training course factsheet.