Page 30 - MetalForming January 2012

Prospective Hindsight
Why You Should Plan to Fail
When preparing to implement a new process, premortems provide a project-planning team with a process that helps to identify and address potential hurdles before they occur.
Oftentimes, initiatives fall short when unanticipated challenges arise. A failure strategy, better known as premortems, is a process by which a company identifies and addresses potential challenges before they occur. In a medical setting, for example, a postmortem offers inter- ested parties insight into what caused a patient’s death. Everyone benefits from this learning, except, of course, the patient. In a business setting, a pre- mortem is conducted before a project is implemented. This preventive, proac- tive process works to ensure that possi- ble difficulties do not arise.
The most recent iteration of pre- mortems is based on research con- ducted by Deborah J. Mitchell of the Wharton School, Jay Russo of Cornell, and Nancy Pennington of the Univer- sity of Colorado. They determined that “prospective hindsight”—imagining that an event already has occurred— increases by 30 percent the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes. When tested against other
Susan Lesser is cofounder of nPlusOne Consulting, West Hartford, CT, a com- pany that works with c-level executives to troubleshoot human-resource and organizational-development challenges; www.nplusoneconsulting.com.
BY SUSAN LESSER
A facilitator then explains that an infallible crystal ball shows this plan was an
plan before the team will fail. However, the crystalball does not indicate the reason for the ghastly fail- ure. That job—identifying the possi- ble causes of failure—belongs to the team. Team members begin their analysis by individually writing down all of the possible reasons why the
plan could fail.
Next, the facilitator asks each team
member to describe what was on his list, starting with the team leader and progressing around the room, gather- ing one reason from each member. This process repeats until every possi- ble reason for failure has been explored,
Because each person in the room has had a different set of experiences, and approaches things with a unique mindset, the resulting comprehensive list of concerns with the plan, as pro- posed, is created from the group’s col- lective knowledge. ( Warning: This step greatly reduces team confidence in the plan—temporarily).
Team members now are asked to review the list of concerns, and suggest one action that could help to reduce the likelihood of the fiasco pictured in the crystal ball. (Depending upon the group, it may be advisable to first tack- le the two or three items of greatest concern, and schedule a second meet- ing to discuss ideas for eliminating or
unmitigated disaster. Beyond shadow of a doubt, the plan
now before the team failed.
project-planning techniques, pre- mortems have been proven to be an effective way to lift group member con- fidence in a project plan.
To better understand how this might be possible, let us first examine the premortem process.
Steps for Conducting a Premortem
The team planning for a new project meets to create the plan or initiative. A facilitator then explains that an infalli- ble crystal ball shows that the plan will be an unmitigated disaster, explaining that beyond a shadow of a doubt, the
a
28 MetalForming/January 2012
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