A pre-mortem beats a risk list because it's concrete: you assume the failure already happened and explain it, which surfaces problems a bland "what are the risks?" never does. This runs five independent pre-mortems from different causes, so you don't just get five versions of the same fear — you get the full failure surface, ranked, with the warning signs and the fixes worth doing before you start.
What This Skill Produces
- Five failure stories — each a vivid "it's six months later and this failed because…" from a different root cause (execution, timing/market, people, external shock, a wrong core assumption)
- Most likely vs. most lethal — which failure is most probable and which would hurt most (they're often different)
- Early warning signs — the signals that each failure is starting to happen, so you can catch it live
- Mitigations worth doing now — the specific, prioritized moves to prevent or de-risk the top failures
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
- The plan or project — what you're about to commit to
- The timeframe — when "did it work?" gets answered
- What's at stake — so we prioritize lethal vs. minor failures
- Known worries — anything already nagging you
Framework: Assume It Failed, From Five Angles
- Jump to the failure. Assume the plan has already failed — this concreteness surfaces risks that abstract risk-listing misses.
- Diversify the causes. Run five independent stories from genuinely different roots so you cover the whole failure surface, not one fear five times.
- Rank likely vs. lethal. Separate the most probable failure from the most damaging — plan for both, but differently.
- Find the early signals. For the top failures, name the leading indicators you'd actually see, so you can react before it's terminal.
- Mitigate now. Turn the top risks into specific actions worth taking before you start, prioritized by leverage.
Output Format
Pre-mortem: [the plan] · by [timeframe]
Five ways it died
- Execution: [story]. 2. Timing/market: [story]. 3. People: [story]. 4. External: [story]. 5. Wrong assumption: [story].
Most likely: [x]. Most lethal: [y]. Early warning signs: [signal → which failure it means]. Do now to de-risk: [prioritized mitigations].
Quality Checks
- Five failure stories from genuinely different root causes
- They're concrete narratives, not a vague risk list
- Most-likely and most-lethal are distinguished
- Early warning signs are named for the top failures
- Specific, prioritized mitigations are proposed
Anti-Patterns
- One fear repeated five times.
- Abstract risks ("competition") instead of concrete stories.
- Treating likely and lethal as the same.
- Warnings with no mitigations to act on.
Example Trigger Phrases
- "Pre-mortem my product launch."
- "Imagine my trip / event / project went wrong — why?"
- "What are the ways this could fail before I commit?"
- "Run a pre-mortem on my career move."
- "Five reasons this plan might die, and how to prevent them."