pre-mortem

To conduct a pre-mortem risk analysis for a product launch, you imagine failure scenarios to uncover potential issues, categorize risks into Tigers, Paper Tigers, and Elephants, and develop mitigation plans for launch-blocking risks.

The best way to identify launch-blocking risks is to systematically imagine launch failure, categorize real problems as Tigers, and classify their urgency into Launch-Blocking, Fast-Follow, or Track to develop concrete mitigation strategies.

Risk categorization works by classifying potential launch issues into Tigers as real problems, Paper Tigers as overblown concerns, and Elephants as unspoken worries, enabling product managers to prioritize and address actual threats.

You need a product plan document to run a pre-mortem analysis effectively. Providing your product plan as input allows the analysis to imagine specific failure scenarios and identify relevant launch risks based on your actual strategy.

You need to perform a pre-mortem analysis before launching a new feature or product. It helps stress-test product plans, identify critical blockers early, and improve overall launch readiness.

Unlike standard risk mitigation, a pre-mortem proactively imagines launch failure scenarios before they happen, categorizing risks by urgency to systematically develop targeted action plans rather than reacting to issues post-launch.