Project Premortem Analysis: What is it and Why do it?
By: Rapidfork Technology
Tags: Risk Management, Project Management, Pre Mortem, Project Planning, Analysis

Everyone has heard the word postmortem from somewhere or the other. If we describe it in layman’s terms, it’s the meeting that occurs after the project has been completed. During this meeting, all the successes and failures during projects are discussed thoroughly so you can learn from the mistakes and work on them for future projects. It is quite helpful in setting things right before beginning a new one, but that’s just it, it only helps you in the future, not the existing project.

Here’s where Premortem comes into play, all the project heads are quite aware of the problems that may arise during the project as they carefully look at every detail that might go wrong. So risk management is a critical affair and a long-term process gets involved to maintain the flow of the project so that quality is served at the completion. This thing that allows us to identify risks and possible failures beforehand is called Premortem. However, that doesn’t make post mortem an enemy. Both of them need to be practiced in order to ensure smooth completion of the project. However, we’ll be discussing what Premortem means, the benefits, risk, and a comparison.

So what is Project Premortem?

This is a practice that a team follows by imagining that their project has been unsuccessful even before the project begins. You might feel it’s being a tad bit pessimistic, but at the end of the day this strategy pays off as it allows the project team to work from the point where the project has failed and figure out what could be the reasons behind the failure.

All the discussions made with the reason behind the failures are pointed out, and then the team tried to solve the issues that caused the project to fail. Now it’s the job of the project manager to try out various scenarios to find the causes behind the failures and use these measures during the life-cycle of the project so that it works effortlessly without any fault. The basic difference that lies between an assumption and Premortem is that in risk assessment, your assumption might not turn up the way you want, but with Premortem, a group of people works on something that did occur.

What are the pros and cons?

Recently, in an interesting piece from a Harvard business article, where a study showed that an image that shows something has already occurred, increases the chance of right finding the reasons for future possibilities by at least 25% and that’s what a Premortem does for you.

There are always cons, so there might be a situation when a Premortem recognizes a threat that may not have any physical credibility. So all the prevention practices you follow will arise from something false so the chances of proper working of the project may deter.

However, it also comes with a setup of solid advantages. It helps in a wider perspective to look at things, which is something that often gets missed in analysis of pre-launch of a project and helps to find problems that may occur during the life-cycle of the project. It also shows if people have over or under-invested in the project. This process not only gives every individual a voice but also respects the input from everyone. You can communicate with each other freely so that an issue gets solved before it turns out to be a problem during the life-cycle of the project.

What is the procedure of project Premortem?

So you have already looked at the benefits that come along with project Premortem now let’s look at how project Premortem is executed. This entire process helps a lot in team building and also improves the bonds within the team, as it already assumes the project has ended because of certain problems. It might not seem a practical approach, but is better in planning and improving the team’s productivity. We’ll break down the complete process in a few steps:-

1) Preparation

Before the commencement of the project, everyone present on your team must be briefed on the details of the project. Then a leader of a team tells everyone that the project hasn’t turned out to be successful and let’s discuss what caused its failure.

2) Reasons behind the failure of the project

As a project leader or a manager, assign your team to sit in pairs or individuals and then ask to brainstorm every way the project may go sideways. Ask them to think freely and be as imaginative as possible, even if it turns out to be informal. As no one will be judged for their thoughts on finding a reason for a project failure, they can speak without holding back anything.

3) Share your own opinion

The project manager or the team leader will ask every individual to give their reasoning behind the problem statement they mentioned of the project getting failed. So the next person who is up for giving a reason must have a different reason and shouldn’t be a one that’s already been said. After discussing all the causes, they are written down on the excel sheet.

4) Reviewing of the discussion

After grouping down the reasons on the excel sheet, it’s the project manager’s responsibility to review and analyze all the listed reasons that may cause the failure of the project and then use this vital data to improve the ongoing project at hand and make sure that team can walk past those risks.

Comparison between Premortem and Postmortem

It’s very essential to know that postmortem and premortem are not mutually exclusive. They are like two sides of a coin; they don’t depend on each other but play their role in the success of a project. A post-mortem of a project is carried out to dissect the project that has been completed and figure out what went sideways and all the necessary measures to be taken so that the next project will be a sure success.

The best way to differentiate them is that the Premortem is the failure of the project that we assume before it even begins, and on the other hand postmortem is analyzing the project that has already been finished. Since every project has its fair share of problems and post mortem helps you figure out what are the problems, how can you improve on the upcoming projects.