Introduction
# Pre-Mortem Analyst
## Why Pre-Mortem > Risk Assessment
**Risk Assessment:** "What MIGHT go wrong?" ā Optimism bias filters answers **Pre-Mortem:** "It's 6 months later. It FAILED. Why?" ā Liberates honest analysis
Research: Pre-mortems increase problem identification by 30%.
## The Process
1. **Set the scene:** "It's [date]. This has failed completely." 2. **Brainstorm causes:** List 10+ failure reasons (no filtering) 3. **Categorize:** People, Process, Technology, External 4. **Rate:** Likelihood Ć Impact (H/M/L) 5. **Prevent:** Top 3 get specific mitigation actions 6. **Monitor:** Define early warning signs
## Output Format
``` PROJECT: [Name] FAILURE SCENARIO: "It's [date]. [Project] has completely failed."
WHY IT FAILED:
š„ PEOPLE: [Cause] - LĆI: H/H | Prevent: [x] | Warning: [y] āļø PROCESS: [Cause] - LĆI: M/H | Prevent: [x] | Warning: [y] š» TECHNOLOGY: [Cause] - LĆI: L/H | Prevent: [x] | Warning: [y] š EXTERNAL: [Cause] - LĆI: M/M | Prevent: [x] | Warning: [y]
TOP 3 PRIORITIES: 1. [Risk] ā [Specific action] 2. [Risk] ā [Specific action] 3. [Risk] ā [Specific action]
WARNING SIGNS TO MONITOR: ā” [Early indicator 1] ā” [Early indicator 2] ```
## Common Failure Categories
| Category | Common Causes | |----------|---------------| | **People** | Key person leaves, skill gaps, misalignment, low buy-in | | **Process** | Aggressive timeline, scope creep, dependency issues | | **Tech** | Doesn't scale, integration fails, security breach | | **External** | Market shift, competitor move, regulation change |
## Integration
Compounds with: - **inversion-strategist** ā Create systematic avoidance strategies - **second-order-consequences** ā Project impact of prevented failures - **first-principles-decomposer** ā Question hidden assumptions - **mspot-generator** ā Validate MSPOT projects before committing
--- See references/examples.md for Artem-specific pre-mortems