pre-mortem

To run a pre-mortem risk analysis, you imagine a project has already failed and retrospectively identify why. This Skill facilitates eliciting 10–20 distinct failure modes across categories like Strategic, Execution, and Technical, then clusters and scores them by impact and likelihood.

The best way to visualize project risks is by generating Mermaid diagrams. This Skill creates cluster heat maps and failure-by-category visuals from your identified failure modes, and supports PNG exports for direct inclusion in project documentation and alignment reports.

Pre-mortem analysis differs from traditional risk analysis by assuming the project has already failed, which surfaces a richer, less constrained set of failure modes. It systematically elicits 10–20 potential failures across nine categories and scores them for impact-to-failure.

Yes, you can export pre-mortem failure modes to risk registers, FMEA, and mitigation-planning artifacts. After clustering and scoring the identified failure modes by impact and likelihood, the Skill formats the outputs for direct integration into your existing risk tracking systems.

You do not need an external facilitator guide because this Skill provides one. It guides you through running a structured session to elicit 10–20 failure modes across project lifecycles, ensuring comprehensive coverage across categories like Market, Regulatory, and Team.

To start a pre-mortem session for project risk assessment, you need to provide structured inputs for your project horizon and failure framings. These inputs define the scope, allowing the Skill to accurately surface and document potential failure modes for mitigation planning.