= 事前驗屍 ↔ Postmortem
預設失敗求成功
Premortem is a project management strategy where a team imagines a project has already failed and then works backward to identify the potential causes of that failure.
A premortem helps teams anticipate problems before they occur, allowing them to proactively address risks and improve the chances of project success.
How to Conduct a Premortem
- Assemble the team: Gather all key stakeholders and project members.
- Set the scenario: Imagine the project has failed spectacularly. Be specific about the type of failure.
- Individual reflection: Each participant writes down all possible reasons for the failure.
- Group sharing: Share and discuss the reasons as a group, clustering similar causes.
- Action planning: Identify the most likely or impactful risks and develop mitigation strategies.
- Document and follow up: Record findings and revisit them during the project lifecycle.
Example Questions
- What could have caused this project to fail?
- What assumptions did we make that turned out to be wrong?
- Where did communication break down?
- What external factors contributed to the failure?
- What warning signs did we miss?