About me
My name is Mauro Bagnato and for over 15 years I have been leading tech organizations.
When I first stepped into leadership, I believed technical expertise was the key to being an effective leader. However, I quickly learned that organizations are living and complex systems and that leading them demands much more than just technical know-how. I believe that curiosity is at the heart of effective leadership. This is what fuels learning and experimentation, both crucial for continuous improvement. This blog aims to explore engineering leadership in all its aspects and to provide insights in a tangible and pragmatic manner. It will also be a space where I will share insights, reflections, and personal takeaways from books, podcasts, and articles that influenced and keep influencing my journey.
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Wouldn’t it be great to spot and address all possible pitfalls of a project before it even starts?
While many are familiar with the concept of a post-mortem—analyzing what went wrong after the fact— the pre-mortem technique might not be as widely recognized.
Yet, it is an extremely effective tool for identifying potential pitfalls before they happen.
In essence, a post-mortem is about analyzing a project or initiative after it has failed or succeeded, identifying what went wrong or right, and using those insights to improve.
Conversely, a pre-mortem, like a time machine, takes you to a future where the project has failed (even if it has not even started) and works backward to determine the potential causes.
This method completely shifts the team's perspective, encouraging a forward-thinking mindset that helps identify potential risks, challenges, and pitfalls that might not be evident in the initial planning phases.
I have been using this technique for quite some time now and I find it extremely powerful because:
- It is a very effective risk management tool. It helps identify potential risks and obstacles before they manifest, allowing for mitigation strategies to be developed in advance.
- It increases team engagement. It might sound counterintuitive but discussing and visualizing potential failures increases transparency, openness, and collaboration.
- It sparkles creativity. It encourages teams to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions.
- It gives no space for blaming. Since there's nothing to blame yet, pre-mortem removes the possibility of blaming and encourages a more collaborative and solutions-focused approach.
- It is fun. Until I tried it for the first time, I could not imagine how many weird ways a project can fail!
f you want to give it a try, here follow a structured approach to conduct a pre-mortem session:
- Gather the Team. Invite only the stakeholders you think can effectively contribute to the discussion..
- Inform everyone that the project they care so much about has failed spectacularly and that they are there to come up with all possible reasons for the failure
- Ask team members to individually write down every reason they can think of that might cause the project to fail.
- Ask each team member to share the list of potential failures. Consolidate similar items to form a comprehensive list of risks.
- Prioritize Risks. Work together to prioritize the identified risks based on their likelihood and potential impact on the project.
- Develop Mitigation Strategies: For each of the top-priority risks, brainstorm and document strategies to prevent or mitigate these risks.
- Assign Actions: Assign specific actions to team members to address the identified risks. Ensure that each action has a clear owner and timeline.
