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Pre-Mortem
A one-page pre-mortem drawn as a work-backwards ledger — the technique from Gary Klein and Daniel Kahneman. Instead of asking what might go wrong, you assume the decision has already failed at some future point and ask why. Name the project and the horizon, brainstorm the reasons it failed down the left, ring how severe each one is, and write the safeguard you'd put in place now on the right. It closes with the single biggest risk to watch. Imagining failure up front frees people to voice the doubts they'd otherwise keep quiet — and turns each one into a safeguard you can act on today. Print it blank to run the session by hand.
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- Stress-testing a plan or decision before you commit — surfacing risks while there's still time to prevent them.
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Related books
Books that pair with this printable.
Daniel Kahneman
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.
Read summary →Chip Heath, Dan Heath
Decisive
A better decision is rarely the loudest option. It is the one that survives alternatives, evidence, distance, and a plan for being wrong.
Read summary →Rolf Dobelli
The Art of Thinking Clearly
Clear thinking is not the absence of bias. It is the habit of catching your favorite mistake before it spends your future.
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