Premortem: How to run a project pre-mortem meeting

When Thomas Edison was inventing the lightbulb, he famously said, "I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Each time a lightbulb didn't work, Edison learned something new about what to avoid and what to try next.

Understanding what doesn't work, and trying something new, is a great way to iterate and improve your processes. That's exactly what a project premortem does. Before kicking off the project, run a premortem with your team to envision what could go wrong. Then, when you move into project execution, you're better equipped to know what won't work and what will.

What is a project premortem?

A project premortem is a risk assessment technique in which your team imagines the project has already failed, then works backward to identify what could go wrong. By visualizing failure before work begins, you can uncover risks and address them proactively.

Premortems are led by the project manager or Scrum master, but the entire project team participates. The more diverse perspectives you include, the more likely you are to uncover hidden risks.

If you've never heard of a premortem, you're not alone. Many project teams plan postmortems at the end of a project to debrief or understand what went wrong, but oftentimes, a postmortem is too little, too late. A premortem proactively identifies risks and addresses them before they happen.

Premortems vs. postmortems

As the name suggests, premortems and postmortems happen at different stages of the project timeline:

Premortem vs. project risk management

A premortem serves a similar purpose to a project risk management process. Both help you proactively identify and prevent project risks. The main difference is how you approach identifying risks.

During project risk management, your team identifies and monitors potential risks through a risk register. If an identified risk becomes reality, your team already has a plan to address it efficiently and effectively.

In a premortem, your team pretends the project has already failed. This mindset helps everyone focus on real risks instead of endless "what ifs." The project lead can then use these insights to lower risks or create a risk management plan.

Who should participate in a premortem?

A good premortem brings together people who know the project well and can spot possible problems. Usually, your session should include:

• Project manager or Scrum master: Leads the session and ensures all voices are heard.

• Core team members: Those directly responsible for executing project tasks bring hands-on insight into what could go wrong.

• Cross-functional partners: Representatives from other departments with a stake in the project's success can identify risks from different perspectives.

• Subject matter experts: People with deep knowledge of the project's domain can spot technical or strategic risks others might miss.

You don’t need to invite executive sponsors who aren’t involved in daily work, since their presence can make open discussion harder. The aim is to create a safe space where everyone feels comfortable sharing concerns.

The benefits of premortems

A premortem helps your team avoid project failure. By imagining failure and working backward, you gain several key benefits:

• Gain prospective hindsight. Prospective hindsight is when you imagine something has already happened. According to research, prospective hindsight increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%.

• Reduce overconfidence. When you really want a project to succeed, it’s easy to overlook risks because of your own biases. A premortem asks you to imagine the project has already failed, so you can brainstorm honestly without letting overconfidence get in the way.

• Involve cross-functional teams. Because a premortem involves a variety of stakeholders, not just the core project team, it brings new perspectives and uncovers risks you wouldn't otherwise identify.

• Align on project risks. Like most risk management plans, a premortem flags potential project risks. When you're working on the project, you and your team can identify those risks faster if they come to pass.

6 steps to using a premortem

To use the premortem method, start by imagining the project has failed and work backward to find possible risks in your plan. After listing risks, discuss how likely and serious they are. Finally, focus on preventing the most likely or severe risks.

1. Create project plan

Before imagining what went wrong, you first need a general sense of what's going to happen. A project plan is a blueprint of the key elements your team will accomplish during the project.

There are seven parts to a project plan:

1. Goals

2. Success metrics

3. Stakeholders and roles

4. Scope and budget

5. Milestones and deliverables

6. Timeline and schedule

7. Communication plan

Create and share your project plan before doing a premortem. Your team needs to understand exactly what the project plan is to consider how it could go wrong. Depending on the initiative's complexity, you could also share a project roadmap, project charter, or business case.

2. Invite stakeholders

As you plan your premortem, invite anyone who has insight into why the project could fail. This includes your core project team and any cross-functional working partners. For help identifying who to invite, create a RACI chart.

To continue our example marketing campaign plan, relevant stakeholders include:

• Daniela, the marketing campaign lead and email marketing manager

• Kabir, the copywriter for the campaign

• Avery, the design lead for the campaign

• Blake, the social media manager supporting the campaign

• Kat, the video manager

3. Identify potential project failures

Once you've shared your project plan and identified your stakeholders, it's time to run the premortem. The first step of the premortem meeting is the brainstorming session, which is split into two parts.

To begin, have each team member identify potential project risks on their own. You can do this in two ways:

• Live: Brainstorm in the same room if your team prefers real-time collaboration.

• Asynchronously: Have team members submit ideas in the days leading up to the meeting.

Ask team members to brainstorm on their own first to avoid bias. There will be time afterward to share and discuss ideas as a group.

As the project lead, create a safe environment for sharing. Some project risks are more personal than others, but ignoring them can hurt the project's success. Consider establishing group norms before the discussion begins.

For example, the marketing campaign team identifies the following reasons the campaign could fail:

• Project deliverables don't go out on time.

• Project deliverables go out on time, but they contain spelling and grammatical errors.

• The project goes over budget.

• There is negative customer feedback on the campaign message, which leads to bad publicity.

• Associated campaign landing pages crash and aren't available on launch week.

• The brand campaign design style is copied by competitors.

• Marketing budget cuts affect brand campaign deliverables and timeline.

• The creative strategy doesn't resonate with customers, leading to a market miss and a reduction in brand perception and value.

• Stakeholders are misaligned on deliverables, leading to frustration throughout the project.

4. Share risks

After everyone has written down their ideas, it’s time to share them with the group. Make sure you or another facilitator records all ideas in one place. Using a whiteboard or a digital tool can help capture everyone’s input.

When it’s time to share, go around and let each team member share one idea at a time. This ensures everyone has a chance to speak. Ask team members not to repeat ideas unless they have something new to add.

5. Identify risks with high likelihood or severity

Not every risk your team identifies will be likely or severe enough to warrant action. As a team, go through the list and use a risk matrix to prioritize failures that are either high likelihood or high severity. The number of risks you identify will depend on your project’s size and impact. Usually, ten is a good target, but you might have more or fewer based on your situation.

For example, during the marketing campaign premortem, the team identifies five risks to address:

• High likelihood: Project deliverables don't go out on time.

• High likelihood: The project goes over budget.

• High severity: Associated campaign landing pages crash and aren't available on launch week.

• High severity: The creative strategy doesn't resonate with customers, leading to a market miss and a reduction in brand perception and value.

• Easy to solve: Stakeholders are misaligned on deliverables, which leads to frustration during the project execution phase.

6. Review and revise the project plan

After the premortem meeting, use what you learned to update your project plan. Find any weak spots and make changes to prevent the failures your team discussed.

If you're working on a large initiative, translate some of the higher-likelihood or higher-severity action items into a risk register. Then, if you made substantial changes or introduced new tools to mitigate risk, present the changes to your team, cross-functional collaborators, and executive stakeholders.

For example, after the marketing campaign premortem, here's how to address each risk:

• There is a high likelihood that project deliverables don't go out on time. To prevent this risk, view your work in a Gantt-chart like tool to visualize tasks on a timeline and get a clear sense of any deliverables or blockers. To keep executive stakeholders in the loop, send weekly project status reports to keep everyone on the same page about project progress.

• There is a high likelihood that the project will go over budget. To mitigate this risk, include budget updates in monthly project status reports and ensure your project sponsor is looped in on all budget updates. Before kicking off the project, reset the budget to ensure you have some to spare.

• The campaign landing pages' crashing severely impacts the brand campaign's success. To prevent this risk, launch the pages in a staging environment the week before to ensure they work well before sharing them with the public.

• The creative strategy not resonating with customers severely impacts the brand campaign's success, leading to a market miss and a reduction in brand perception and value. To prevent this risk, include persona research from the product marketing team in the project plan and project brief so everyone is on the same page.

• Project stakeholders can become frustrated during the project if they're misaligned on deliverables. This risk is easily solvable with a communication plan and a central source of truth for all project information, like a work management tool.

Premortem best practices

To make your premortem as useful as possible, follow these best practices:

• Be specific, not general. Vague risks like "the project might fail" aren’t helpful. Ask your team to name concrete situations, like "the development team could be pulled onto a higher-priority project during the sprint."

• Keep the conversation positive and practical. A premortem isn’t the place to vent or settle old issues. Focus on ideas that help prevent real problems.

• Set a time limit for your premortem. Aim for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on how complex your project is. This keeps everyone focused and avoids burnout.

• Assign someone to each top risk. For every risk that’s likely or serious, pick a person to watch over it or take action during the project.

• Use visual tools like whiteboards, sticky notes, or digital apps. These help your team spot patterns and build on each other’s ideas.

• Write everything down. Keep all identified risks in one place so you can refer back to them as the project moves forward.

• Check back on your findings. Plan regular check-ins during the project to review the premortem results and see if any risks are starting to show up.

After the premortem: What happens next?

A premortem helps you understand why a project could fail and prevent those risks from surfacing. Once you're finished with your premortem, all that's left is to run the project. For help getting started, as well as project management best practices, check out our project management resource hub.

Ready to put your premortem insights into action? Get started with Asana to keep your project plan, risk documentation, and team collaboration in one central place.

Frequently asked questions about project premortems