// description
A pre-mortem is conducted before a project begins. The team imagines that the project has already failed and then works backward to identify the most plausible causes of that failure. By starting from the assumption of failure, participants are psychologically freed from the optimism bias that typically pervades project planning and are more willing to voice concerns they might otherwise suppress for fear of seeming unsupportive.
// history
Gary Klein, a psychologist specialising in naturalistic decision-making, developed the pre-mortem technique as a practical application of prospective hindsight, a phenomenon studied by Deborah Mitchell, Jay Russo, and Nancy Pennington in 1989. Their research showed that imagining an event has already occurred increases the ability to identify reasons for it by 30%. Klein popularised the method through his consulting work and his 2007 book The Power of Intuition.
// example
A creator is about to launch a new KDP course. The pre-mortem prompt: "It is four months from now and the course has failed — low enrolment, poor completion, refund requests. What went wrong?" Writing independently, then sharing: "We launched too close to Christmas when people don't start new things." "The sales page didn't explain who it was for — we attracted students who weren't ready." "We didn't have enough testimonials from the pilot cohort." "The course was too long and completion dropped off by module 3." Each failure cause becomes a specific item on the launch plan with a preventive action. The pre-mortem surfaces risks that optimistic planning glossed over.
// katharyne's take
I run a pre-mortem before every course launch and every major product launch, and I do it in writing — not as a casual thought exercise. The act of writing "it has already failed" and generating specific causes bypasses the optimism that makes planning feel good but launches feel disappointing. The most valuable responses are usually the uncomfortable ones: the ones where you already knew the risk but were hoping to get away with it. Write those down and do something about them. The pre-mortem is your insurance against motivated reasoning.
// creative uses
- Run a pre-mortem on a new KDP niche before you invest in cover design and interior production. Prompt: "It is six months from now and this book has zero organic sales. Why?" Common answers — oversaturated niche, no keyword demand, cover doesn't match buyer expectations — are all cheaper to fix before you've spent 40 hours on the interior.
- Use a pre-mortem before enrolling in a course or mastermind. Prompt: "I spent £500 and got nothing out of this. What happened?" Typical answers — I didn't do the work, I enrolled at a bad time, the format didn't suit me — give you a checklist of conditions to verify before you buy.
- Run a pre-mortem before a seasonal Etsy push (Q4, Valentine's, Mother's Day). Prompt: "This season I made 30% less than last year. What went wrong?" Answers typically surface inventory gaps, listing quality issues, and missed ad setup windows — all fixable weeks before the season peaks.
// quick actions
- Pick your next launch — course, product, digital download — and open a blank doc. Write at the top: "It is [date 3 months from now] and this launch completely flopped. Write every reason you can think of." Set a 15-minute timer. Do not edit. Read the list and add one preventive action to your launch plan for each item.
- Share your pre-mortem list with one other creator or business friend before you launch. Their additions will surface blind spots your own optimism hid — especially around sales page clarity and audience readiness.
- Keep a "pre-mortem archive" — a doc where you save every pre-mortem you've run. Before each new launch, read the previous two. The failure causes that repeat across launches are your systemic weaknesses: fix the system, not just the symptom.
// prompt ideas
Run a pre-mortem on my upcoming [course launch/product launch/Etsy seasonal push]. The launch is planned for [date], the offer is [describe it briefly], and my target audience is [describe them]. Imagine it is [date 3 months later] and the launch completely failed — low sales, refund requests, no momentum. Generate 12 specific, honest reasons why it failed, including the uncomfortable ones I'm probably glossing over. Then for each reason, give me one preventive action I can take before launch day.
I'm about to enter the [niche] market on [KDP/Etsy] with [number] new products. Conduct a pre-mortem specifically for this niche entry: it is six months from now and every product I launched has zero organic sales and I've abandoned the niche. What went wrong? Be specific about market-level failures (wrong niche, wrong timing, oversaturation), product-level failures (wrong format, wrong design, wrong keywords), and execution failures (poor listings, no reviews, wrong pricing).
Help me build a pre-mortem archive template I can use before every major business decision. I make decisions like [give 3 examples: entering new niches, investing in courses, launching products]. Design a one-page template that includes the failure assumption prompt, a structured list of failure causes by category, a space for preventive actions, and a "what would have to be true for this to succeed" section — so I can complete it in under 30 minutes and actually use it every time.