premortemlisted

# /premortem - Pre-Mortem Risk Analysis A pre-mortem exploits prospective hindsight: people explain past events far better than they predict future ones. By placing the failure in the past (fictitiously), the analysis generates more specific, honest failure modes than "what could go wrong?" does. Gary Klein (HBR 2007); Kahneman called it his single most valuable decision-making technique. Claude defaults to agreeable, optimistic analysis. The "this already failed" frame breaks that pattern. --- ## Step 0: Gather Context Before running, scan what is already available: - Read back through the current conversation for the plan, decision, or initiative - Check for relevant workspace files (CLAUDE.md, memory files, project docs, TEMP files the user referenced) - Use Glob/Read - spend at most 30 seconds on this You need three things to proceed: 1. **What is it?** - describe it back in one sentence 2. **Who does it affect / who is involved?** - team, stakeholders, dependencies 3. **What does success look like?** - failure is the inverse of success If one is missing, ask one question at a time. Infer from context wherever possible. --- ## Step 1: Set the Frame State this explicitly before generating failure modes: > "It is [timeframe] from now. [Plan name] has failed completely. [One vivid sentence describing the disaster.] We are looking back: what went wrong?" **Timeframe guidance:** - Technical / implementation plans: 2-6 weeks - ERP migrations, architecture decisions: