What Project Managers Need To Know About Pre-Mortems?
By: Sayan Mukherjee
Tags: Project Management, Leadership, Agile Methodology, Management And Leadership

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Even if you have not bumped into a medical practitioner (for good) throughout your life so far, the term “post-mortem” shouldn’t be alien. While post-mortems are essentially used mostly in the medical field, it has wide applications across a multitude of our everyday life events. How many times have you landed up in a situation blaming your decision to not work out your relationship the way you could have? Or, may be found yourself locked-up explaining what really went wrong that you choose a certain career option. Post-Mortems are so common! We almost do it knowingly and unknowingly each passing day of our lives.

I once heard about one of this senior in a corporate where he once walks up to this meeting room right before the annual appraisal to deliver a speech. And he tells his team members that he had been monitoring their login and logout times closely and he observed that most of the members were not spending adequate time which was why performance and client deliverables had been impacted!

If this sounds, familiar to you, then you’re not alone! There are many of us who take the notion of “God has been watching us from above” very seriously! And, when the time is right, you pay for your deeds..

Coming back to reality, you are just as human as any one else. So, sitting back and watching to do a post-mortem isn’t really a good idea for you or your business. If there is something that needs an early course correction, you should make your team aware of it, isn’t it? Well, that’s for the greater good!

So What Exactly is Pre-Mortem?

Work can often get very taxing no matter what job you might be doing. With demanding client expectations, it is very easy to mismanage things unless you have a proper framework and the right attitude where you make sure to put up the necessary framework to avoid a distasteful event.

A post-mortem as we know, describes the processes of explaining the underlying cause of death of an event. While most commonly the term is used to indicate an investigation of the death of a living being, which in most cases, is human beings, the term is suitable in the death of hopes, products, opportunities and many more.

While a post-mortem is essentially backward looking, a pre-mortem is a forward looking approach. While some of you may not find the real merit of a forward looking approach, it in fact is a way more effective and efficient strategy when it comes to product or project management.

Importance of Documentation

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We do something — if it had a negative or sub-optimal aftermath, we end up feeling a little sad, a bit depressed, somewhat demotivated, and utterly drained out! We find some entertainment, focus back, get ourselves going and hope for a better day! And, REPEAT!

How many times do you really sit back and reflect on your past actions — whether positive or negative! A careful examination of something that might not have worked out in the past needs to be well documented so as not to repeat the same mistake again! That’s one key area where post-mortems play a wonderful role — provided you get a second chance unlike how most medical professionals would see it! :)

But why wait for the DEATH of SOMETHING to do a post mortem? Can you do something beforehand to prevent the dreadful and unnecessary post-mortems?

How Many Times Have You Judged Yourself Before Judging Others?

How many times have you peeped out of your cabin and popped out your head all of a sudden, walked into the conference room and taken a long session criticizing your team members over some fuzzy client escalations? Sounds familiar? This is not an uncommon scenario across organizations and teams. What most of us enjoy doing is wearing the decision-maker’s hat, finding great enjoyment in cutting through, dissecting and analyzing events after something happens! Trial — Error — Repeat!!

It’s very similar to watching the 80’s — 90’s Bollywood movies where police arrived at the crime spot after the crime had already taken place and the prime suspect(s) left the scene!

Why Pre-Mortem is Effective?

According to Gary Klein, “Performing a Project Premortem” HBR, September 1, 2007, pre-mortems are an effective way by which you could prevent death rather than explain it. The whole idea of conducting pre-mortems is to prevent certain problems from occurring and increasing the likelihood of success.

Pre-mortems are a good investments of time and effort. They can help ensure success. So, the next time before judging your team, make sure you have done the necessary pre-mortem to avoid an unfavorable event in the first place!