Weekly individual Pre-mortems as a Product Manager

A somewhat common practice when finishing a phase of a product, or when an accident happens, is to do a Post-mortem — a meeting where the team reflects about what went wrong, what went well, and how can we make it different next time.

A less common practice though, are Pre-mortems: reflections about what could go wrong, and how to avoid it.

As a Product Manager, I’ve been applying Pre-mortems to my weekly process, and it has been a great way to anticipate potential issues, from big incidents to small blockers.

The structure is simple… very simple:

At the beginning of each week I ask myself

“What could go wrong during this or next week(s)?”

And I force myself to write at least 3 potential scenarios.

It’s as simple as that. I don’t have a list of several questions to answer, or a structured schedule — that’s the way I like it for Pre and Post-mortems, because I believe each product/project is unique on its specific concerns.

Some possible outcomes:

• Probably we won’t be able to deliver our scope for this release. What should we change to make it happen? If we can’t, then what actions or hard decisions do we need to take?
• We haven’t yet setup the production environment for this new API. How can we anticipate this to avoid issues close to release time?
• Team member X is getting too stressed due to issue Y, which may lead to burnout. How can we decrease their stress levels?
• We have advanced to the next phase but we aren’t sure yet if we’ve nailed the previous’ UX. How can we validate it? Since we’re short of time, how can we do it quicker?

Naturally, after these points are identified, I think of potential ways to prevent them from happening, be it alone or by involving the right stakeholders.

I can say that Pre-mortems are a place and time where I force myself to be sincere with me and the status of the product. It’s a place where I try hard to identify issues that my brain, as an optimistic stakeholder, tends to blind me from.

And the process is simple enough to just take 30min of my schedule, but effective to have reduced a considerable amount of issues before their occurrence.

My goal for future product phases is to experiment with team-wide Pre-mortems and observe its impact.

I’m Daniel, Product Manager at Whitesmith. Paper Planes is a place where I reflect my experiences and learnings on the craft of Product Management, and where I share them with my team and community.

If you enjoy these, please show your love by tapping the clap button!
You’re also welcome to follow me on Medium or Twitter!