Pre-mortem may seem like an intimidating name for an exercise but it is close to how it sounds. “Pre-” implies before and ‘mortem” means to die. A premortem assesses risks that could kill or destroy a product or idea.
It is important to gather this context from participants prior to a workshop to gauge their confidence in the product or idea, as well as to gather unforeseen information that may otherwise be concealed from you or your team such as some internal blocker, market news, or other inhibiting factors that could make the product fall of course or fail.
Two steps in creating a good pre-mortem document.
- Get workshop participants' input before the session → There’s a template Typeform survey. Duplicate it and send it to both internal and external workshop participants. Be sure to brief the manager on the client side and request that it be complete prior to the workshop. If anyone forgets or doesn’t have time (this happens quite often) provide a 10 minute time slot during the workshop to allow participants to focus and complete this survey.
- Use the session to comment on different risks and ideate potential solutions to address those risks
Our ultimate workshop template covers the goals and the flow of this workshop exercise. You should use it when preparing your agenda and workshop board (be it online or remote).