Sponsors ask skeptics to imagine the project has failed a year from now and list why, then build the best answers into the plan, which turns objections into improvements the critics helped write.
An example
Housekeeping at a hotel group's twenty-two properties was still scheduled on paper when its vice president of operations proposed a central system. The general managers were skeptical, and several had said so. At the planning meeting she asked them to imagine it was a year later and the system had failed badly, and to write down, each on their own, every reason it might have failed. The list ran to forty-one items. The most common were that housekeepers would distrust the assignments, that the system would miss late checkouts, and that night managers would override it without telling anyone. She grouped the reasons, and the general managers wrote fixes for the top ten: a late-checkout feed from the front desk, a two-week parallel run, override logging. The rollout plan carried their names beside the fixes they wrote.
Why it works
Skeptics hold back objections in planning meetings when raising them sounds disloyal or negative. Asking them to imagine the project has already failed and explain why makes finding problems the task itself, which gives everyone permission to say what worries them. The plan looks better because it now carries fixes for the real risks, and agreement is easier because the critics helped write it. Two things matter most: a sponsor willing to change the plan, and everyone writing on their own before discussion starts. It checks overconfidence only if the answers are taken seriously.
The thinking behind it
Gary Klein Klein's Performing a Project Premortem (2007) has team members assume, before a project starts, that it has already failed, and each generate plausible reasons for the failure. The exercise makes it safe for knowledgeable people with reservations to raise them during planning, when the plan can still change. Asking the general managers to write their reasons alone, before any discussion, follows that design.
Daniel Kahneman In Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), chapter 24, Kahneman discusses Klein's premortem approvingly as a check on overconfidence. The book contrasts fast, intuitive judgment with slow, effortful thinking that engages only when something demands it. A team committed to its plan judges it in the fast, confident mode, and imagining failure forces the slower search for reasons. Some of the book's other chapters rest on studies that failed to replicate; this endorsement does not depend on them.
When it fits
Projects with skeptical stakeholders who will have to carry out the plan are the obvious case, along with any large plan where overconfidence is a risk. Hold it at a planning meeting before the plan is final, with a sponsor open to changing it, and time to work the fixes in.
How to use it well
Run it before the plan is locked, and gather the people who know the work, skeptics included.
- Ask everyone to imagine the project has failed a year from now and to write down every reason, each on their own.
- Collect all the reasons, then group them.
- Ask the group to write fixes for the most important ones.
- Put the fixes into the plan, with the names of the people who wrote them.
Take the answers seriously. A premortem whose results are ignored teaches skeptics that their objections do not count, and they will raise them later, in less useful ways and at a worse time.
What it costs and where it backfires
The exercise surfaces problems that may need real changes, time, or money. A long list of failure reasons can alarm executives and slow the project. Critics who contribute fixes will expect to see them used. The method stays clean while the answers shape the plan. A premortem run as a formality, with the results set aside, is a staged consultation and does more harm than skipping it.
When it is used on you
Join a rival's premortem when invited, and write down your real concerns. If your fixes are adopted, the project is better and you helped shape it. If they are ignored, you have a dated record of having raised them, and grounds to ask the sponsor why before rollout.