When to Use Project Premortems to Increase Performance

When to Use Project Premortems to Increase Performance
Companies like Google are known for using project postmortems to learn, foster a healthy culture of constructive debate, and continuously improve between projects. But high performing teams know that learning before a project starts can be equally as valuable. That’s where project premortems come in. A project premortem isn’t just a tactical risk management tool; it’s a performance accelerator that helps teams identify hidden assumptions, align perspectives, and mitigate preventable mistakes.

What Is a Project Premortem?
Coined by cognitive psychologist Gary Klein (2007), a project premortem flips the traditional project postmortem on its head. Instead of asking, “What worked well, and what could be improved?” after a project is completed, teams assume the project has already succeeded or failed and ask, “What caused the success?  The failure?” This imaginative shift combats workplace complacency, exposes blind spots, and encourages candid discussion about risks that might otherwise be unspoken.

The Benefits of a Project Premortem
Research conducted in 1989 by Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and Nancy Pennington, of the University of Colorado, found that prospective hindsight — imagining that an event has already occurred — increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. By anticipating obstacles in advance, teams become more adept at managing uncertainty and executing under pressure.

Beyond better project outcomes, premortems strengthen the overall decision making culture by rewarding intellectual honesty, normalizing constructive debate, and building a culture of collective accountability. Over time, teams that use premortems develop sharper judgment, stronger collaboration, and greater resilience under uncertainty.

An Example — The Value of Taking a Different Perspective and Prospective Hindsight
Earlier this year, US experts gathered for two days to plan China’s invasion of Taiwan. Based upon reporting from Jeffrey Michaels and Michael John Williams, instead of doing their typical military plans on how to defend the island nation or conducting a postmortem After Action Report (AAR) to identify lessons learned, they put themselves in Beijing’s shoes and focused on how China might overcome the obstacles that have so far kept it from invading.

Similar to a thoughtful project premortem that helps teams to challenge assumptions and come up with unincumbered insights ahead of time, this mental role reversal yielded new thinking about Beijing’s strategic mindsets. When the experts “thought like Beijing,” took advantage of diverse perspectives, and looked at different strategic scenarios, they exposed gaps in American strategic thinking related to key political scenarios that they needed to monitor and prepare for.

The conclusion?  Michaels and Williams say: “By forcing Americans to try and think like Chinese planners, it revealed possibilities that U.S. planning overlooks. It showed that the most dangerous scenarios might not be the most dramatic ones. And it demonstrated that effective deterrence requires understanding not just China’s capabilities, but also its images of future war, the doubts of its leaders, and the difficulties of its planners to confidently provide winning options.”

Now, just like a project team having completed a premortem, those insights need to be translated into military readiness and political policies to help protect regional interests.

When to Use a Project Premortem
When executed with enough psychological team safety, diversity of thought, and disciplined facilitation, the premortem process can save months of frustration and wasted effort. Project premortems are most powerful when used strategically. Based upon change management training data, below are key scenarios where they deliver the greatest performance lift:

1. Before Launching High-Stakes Initiatives
   Change management consulting experts know that premortems are ideal for initiatives where failure would be costly or visible. Examples include major product launches, system implementations, organizational restructuring, and strategic transformations. By imagining that the initiative failed or succeeded spectacularly, leaders can surface latent risks and strategic leverage points related to timing, resources, or market dynamics that teams may traditionally miss.
2. When Teams Exhibit Groupthink
   In high functioning teams, psychological team safety can paradoxically lead to agreement bias where everyone nods in consensus, even when doubts linger. A premortem provides an approved space for skepticism. It encourages team members to challenge assumptions without being labeled as “negative.” Research from Nemeth and Ormiston (2007) found that structured and constructive dissent improves decision quality and innovation outcomes.
3. During Rapid Growth or Change
   When organizations are scaling quickly, the risk of overconfidence and under-planning spikes. Premortems slow the pace just enough to bring strategic and critical thinking back into the forefront. Big picture thinking helps teams to stress-test scalability plans, anticipate operational friction, and make proactive adjustments before momentum outpaces strategies, infrastructure, and capabilities.
4. When Previous Lessons Haven’t Stuck
   We know from strategy retreat facilitation that when teams repeat the same mistakes or have recurring issues (e.g., missed deadlines, communication breakdowns, unclear ownership, ineffective decision making, or interpersonal conflict) a well-planned project premortem can serve as a much appreciated and team-driven corrective mechanism. Done right, it can shift the focus from fixing symptoms after the fact to diagnosing and addressing root causes before they resurface.
5. Prior to Executive Decision-Making
   We know from leadership simulation assessment data that premortems can be particularly valuable for leadership teams making complex, high-impact decisions with incomplete information. Premortem exercises enable leaders to explore alternate scenarios and consider the second- and third-order consequences of their choices. The goal is to enhance strategic foresight and strategic alignment.

The Bottom Line
Stop waiting for failure.  Use premortems to thoughtfully engage teams in a structured exploration of “what could go wrong” and “what needs to go right.”  Do your teams need to improve their ability to think strategically, look around corners, anticipate obstacles, or adapt faster?

To learn more about setting team up for success, download 5 Steps to Get Your Project Team Pulling in the Same Direction