Failure Anticipation Review

The Failure Anticipation Review, also called a “pre-mortem”, is a proactive risk assessment technique developed by Gary Klein. It involves imagining a project has already failed and then brainstorming possible reasons of the failure, for the purpose of identifying the most effective risk mitigation steps.

While the term pre-mortem is used more frequently, I prefer to call this practice a Failure Anticipation Review for the same reasons that I prefer to call post-mortems a post-incident review instead.

The power of cognitive reframing

The key principle of the Failure Anticipation Review is that participants engage in a thought experiment where failure has already taken place. This frees people from social pressure or emotional attachment to the success of the project, rewarding them instead for problems and weaknesses that they can identify.

According to Klein, this approach:

1. Reverses Harmful Social Dynamics: He states that traditional planning meetings create “silent pressure” that discourages team members from voicing doubts or concerns. People are reluctant to appear negative or undermine team morale. The Failure Anticipation Review “reverses this dynamic” by making it intellectually rewarding and socially acceptable to identify potential failures.

2. Improves people’s ability to correctly predict reasons for future outcomes: Using a “crystal ball” scenario that definitively shows the plan has already failed transforms participants’ cognitive approach. This hypothetical framing, called Prospective Hindsight, allows people to imagine failure scenarios more objectively, without the emotional investment of defending a current plan. A study performed in 1989 (Mitchell, Russo, and Pennington 1989) shows that using prospective hindsight can improve the ability to correctly predict reasons for future outcomes by as much as 30%.

3. Counteracts Overconfidence Bias: Research cited by Klein shows that Failure Anticipation Reviews lead to “the greatest reduction in overconfidence” compared to other critique methods. Teams naturally exhibit optimism bias during planning; the Failure Anticipation Review forces them to confront potential negative outcomes they might otherwise overlook.

4. Creates Psychological Safety for dissent: The method makes it “safe for dissenters who are knowledgeable about the undertaking and worried about its weaknesses to speak up”. By framing criticism as insight rather than negativity, it encourages honest, constructive feedback.

5. Leverages Cognitive Diversity: By requiring each team member to contribute unique failure scenarios, the method ensures teams “hear ideas they hadn’t thought of themselves,” drawing on different perspectives and experiences.

Performing a Failure Anticipation Review

Gary Klein, in his own words, describes the method as follows:

The pre-mortem is simple to run, and can take as little as 20-30 minutes. If you conduct the pre-mortem in a kickoff meeting, with the team sitting around a table, the members have become familiar with the plan. Then you tell them that you are switching gears. You pretend you are looking into an imaginary, infallible crystal ball and—oh no! The plan you’ve just discussed has turned out to be a failure. A fiasco. That much is certain.

Next, you ask each team member to take two minutes to write down the reasons why the plan failed.

Once the two minutes are up you go around the room, asking each person to announce his/her top reason. Then on to the next person for an item that is different. You write their issues on a whiteboard, giving each person a chance to talk. You start with the team leader, to set an example of being candid.

At the end, you have a list of showstoppers. The project leader and the team is now sensitized to things that can go wrong (Klein, 2007).

References