Pre-mortem

It is March. It failed. Why?

Ask a room what could go wrong and you get manners. Tell it the project already failed and you get a list.

A hand-drawn pair of taps: one leaks unchecked and floods the floor, the other drips into a glass set underneath it

Same room, two questions

Same eight people, same kickoff. Only the question changes.

The project

Move card processing to a new payments provider. Kickoff on 13 January, cutover on the first weekend of March.

“Before we start: what could go wrong?”

  • Dana, payments engineerTheir API docs are good. Should be fine.
  • Marco, financeNothing from my side.
  • Priya, tech leadTesting, maybe? But we have seven weeks.

The read

Forty seconds of silence, three polite answers, nothing to log. Doubting a plan out loud, in front of the person who wrote it, costs something. So nobody does.

Twelve notes, three risks

Twelve notes get read once and forgotten. Cut them before you leave the room.

  1. Cluster

    Stick the notes on a wall and let the duplicates find each other. Four piles.

    • Money in flight1, 2, 4
    • Checkout5, 6, 7, 10
    • Finance and contract3, 8
    • People and calendar9, 11, 12

  2. Pick three

    Only the ones that are both likely and expensive. The sandbox gap is likely but cheap: you find it in week one. A late PCI sign-off is expensive, but the audit is already booked.

  3. Log each one

    Each goes into the RAID log with an owner, a trigger and a date. A risk with no date is a worry.

    Saved cards do not reach the new provider before cutover.

    Owner
    Dana
    Trigger
    Old provider has not confirmed an export date in writing.
    By
    6 February

    The old contract renews for twelve months on 1 March.

    Owner
    Marco
    Trigger
    No signed acknowledgement of our 30-day notice.
    By
    30 January

    Cutover cannot be reversed once card traffic moves.

    Owner
    Priya
    Trigger
    Routing back to the old provider not rehearsed in staging.
    By
    20 February

Running one

Read the prompt word for word. The past tense is the whole trick.

Read this out

“It is [the date after launch]. [The project] failed, badly. Take three minutes, on your own, and write down every reason why. One per note.”

When
Kickoff, after the plan is presented and before anyone commits to it.
Who
The whole team, plus one person who lives with the result: support, finance.
How long
45 minutes. Three of them silent.
Then
One note each, round the room, until none are left.

Nobody will doubt your plan to your face. Everybody will explain its failure.