Pre-Mortem Step-by-Step

Hope Gurion

Report

Before you make a one-way door decision, use this Pre-Mortem to uncover hidden risks and strengthen your plan. Based on research by Gary Klein and Daniel Kahneman, this exercise helps teams imagine a future where the project has failed and work backward to identify why. It’s easier for humans to diagnose failure than to predict success, making this a powerful way to reveal blind spots, challenge assumptions, and improve resilience.

Ideal for one-way door decisions, those that are difficult or costly to reverse, this structured, cross-functional workshop helps accountable leaders and domain experts stress-test their plan before committing.

Hope Gurion

Product Leader & Team Coach @ Fearless Product

Hope Gurion coaches product leaders and teams moving to outcome-oriented cultures, aka the Product Operating Model. As a former Chief Product Officer and Senior Vice President of Product, Hope has diverse leadership experience across B2B, B2C, and marketplace products. She teaches Product Discovery Fundamentals with Teresa Torres' ProductTalk Academy and created the Defining Outcomes course. Her work as a coach is profiled in Marty Cagan's book, Transformed.