# Pre-Mortem Workshop Participants assume a planned project has completely failed, write specific causes working backward from that imagined outcome, and draft preventative actions. **Time:** 60 minutes. 60 minutes matches the WorkshopBank source framework. **People:** 4 to 20. Individual writing, small clusters of 3 to 6 participants for grouping, and whole-room prioritization. ## Choose this exercise **Purpose:** Identify unstated project risks and draft concrete mitigations before executing a plan. **Use it when:** Use before launching a new project, product release, or major organizational change once a baseline plan exists. **Skip it when:** Skip when the core project scope is still undefined, or during an active emergency that requires immediate operational response rather than risk planning. ## Materials and tools - Sticky notes (2 pads per table of 4) - Black felt-tip markers (1 per person) - Dot stickers for voting (3 per person) - Whiteboard or open wall space - A printed or visible one-page summary of the current project plan - Digital whiteboard tool (such as Miro or Mural) for remote or hybrid sessions ## Before participants arrive 1. Post the current project plan summary where everyone can read it. 2. Clear a wall or whiteboard with headers: Failure Causes, High Priority, and Action Table (Risk, Mitigation, Owner, Due Date). 3. Place sticky notes and markers at every seat. 4. For remote or hybrid sessions, set up the digital whiteboard frames in advance. ## Say this to open Today we are looking at our plan from the future. Imagine it is six months from now, and this initiative has failed completely and visibly. Do not ask if it might fail. Assume it already crashed. Your job right now is to write down the exact reasons why it fell apart. ## How to run it ### 1. Set the scene and rule of failure (7 minutes) State the imagined failure scenario with a specific future date. Emphasize that candid critique of the plan is required and expected today. Answer clarifying questions about project scope. ### 2. Individual failure generation (8 minutes) Participants work in silence. Everyone writes one failure reason per sticky note. Prompt them to write concrete operational causes, not generic complaints. For example, write 'Vendor API delivered 4 weeks late with no sandbox testing' rather than 'Poor communication'. Anyone wishing not to write may review the project summary silently. ### 3. Share and cluster (20 minutes) Form groups of 3 to 6 participants. Each person takes up to 1 minute to read their notes aloud and post them on the wall. The group groups duplicates into thematic clusters under the Failure Causes header. If working as a single small room under 7 people, run this step as one shared group. ### 4. Prioritize critical risks (10 minutes) Give each participant 3 dot stickers. Everyone places dots on the failure clusters that are both most probable and most damaging to the project. Tally the votes to identify the top 3 to 5 critical risks. ### 5. Develop mitigation responses (15 minutes) Appoint a scribe. For each top-voted failure cluster, the room defines a concrete preventative action, an individual owner, and a target completion date. The scribe records these into the documented Action Table on the board. ## Debrief questions - Which failure mode surprised you the most when you saw it on the board? - Do our mitigation actions have clear owners and realistic target completion dates? - Did we identify any risks that sit completely outside our team control? **Finished output:** A prioritized board of project failure modes accompanied by a documented action list of mitigations with named owners and target dates. ## Remote Set up a digital whiteboard with pre-labeled frames: Scenario, Failure Brainstorm, Thematic Clusters, Dot Voting, and Action Table. Run silent writing for 8 minutes on digital sticky notes. Use breakout rooms of 3 to 6 people for initial clustering, then call the main room back for dot voting and action assignment. ## Hybrid Assign a dedicated in-room digital scribe who mirrors physical wall stickies onto a shared digital whiteboard in real time. Remote participants add sticky notes to the digital whiteboard, and the scribe reads them aloud during cluster formation. Remote participants cast votes directly in the digital tool. ## Access and participation choices - Provide an option to dictate failure items or submit typed notes ahead of the session. - Participants may pass during individual sharing without giving a reason, or choose to contribute solely during the clustering phase. ## If the session gets stuck **Participants write vague or generic problems like 'bad culture' or 'poor teamwork'.** Ask the writer: 'What concrete event happened on a Tuesday morning that proved the teamwork failed?' Re-write the note with that specific event. **Team members hesitate to name risks because they fear offending project leads.** Remind the room that the premise mandates total failure, meaning finding flaws is a required duty for the exercise, not an attack on the planner. ## Terms used here - Pre-Mortem: A planning technique where a team assumes a project has already failed before work starts, helping uncover blind spots. ## Sources and adaptation Observed in WorkshopBank workshop materials ('Pre-Mortem Workshop'). The underlying pre-mortem method is widely attributed in management literature to Gary Klein. The core five-step mechanic (Set the scene, individual generation, share and post, prioritize, develop responses) and the 60-minute duration are drawn directly from the WorkshopBank evidence. UWT adjusted subgroup sizing to 3 to 6 participants, reallocated step durations to provide 20 minutes for sharing and clustering, added explicit scribe roles for generating the mitigation action list, and detailed remote digital tools. [WorkshopBank](https://workshopbank.com/workshops/pre-mortem) [WorkshopBank](https://workshopbank.com/tools/pre-mortem-workshop) Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/pre-mortem-workshop-workshopbank/