Agent skill
pre-mortem-facilitator
Pre-mortem analysis skill for prospective hindsight and failure mode identification
Install this agent skill to your Project
npx add-skill https://github.com/a5c-ai/babysitter/tree/main/library/specializations/domains/business/decision-intelligence/skills/pre-mortem-facilitator
Metadata
Additional technical details for this skill
- domain
- business
- category
- collaboration
- priority
- medium
- specialization
- decision-intelligence
- tools libraries
-
[ "custom workflows", "markdown", "collaboration tools" ]
SKILL.md
Pre-mortem Facilitator
Overview
The Pre-mortem Facilitator skill provides structured capabilities for conducting pre-mortem analyses. Using prospective hindsight, it helps teams identify potential failure modes before implementation, enabling proactive risk mitigation and more robust decision-making.
Capabilities
- Pre-mortem session structuring
- Failure mode collection
- Frequency and impact assessment
- Mitigation strategy brainstorming
- Action item generation
- Bias challenge integration
- Documentation and tracking
- Follow-up scheduling
Used By Processes
- Cognitive Bias Debiasing Process
- Decision Quality Assessment
- Structured Decision Making Process
Usage
Session Setup
# Configure pre-mortem session
session_config = {
"decision": "Launch of New Product Line",
"decision_summary": "Expand into adjacent market with modified existing product",
"investment": 5000000,
"timeline": "18 months",
"success_criteria": [
"Achieve $10M revenue in year 1",
"Capture 5% market share by year 2",
"Maintain 40% gross margin"
],
"participants": [
{"name": "Project Lead", "role": "facilitator"},
{"name": "Product Manager", "perspective": "product"},
{"name": "Sales Director", "perspective": "market"},
{"name": "Finance Lead", "perspective": "financial"},
{"name": "Operations Lead", "perspective": "execution"},
{"name": "External Advisor", "perspective": "devils_advocate"}
],
"session_duration": 90 # minutes
}
Pre-mortem Scenario
# The hypothetical failure scenario
failure_scenario = {
"date": "18 months from now",
"headline": "Product Launch Fails to Meet Revenue Targets",
"narrative": """
It is now 18 months after the product launch. Despite significant investment
and effort, the product has achieved only $3M in revenue (30% of target)
and 1.5% market share. The project is being reviewed for discontinuation.
Your task: Write down all the reasons why this failure occurred.
Be specific and think about what went wrong from your perspective.
""",
"instructions": [
"Work independently for 10 minutes",
"Write down every reason you can think of",
"Be specific - name names, dates, decisions",
"Consider both internal and external factors",
"Don't filter - capture all ideas"
]
}
Failure Mode Collection
# Collected failure modes
failure_modes = {
"product": [
{
"id": "FM-001",
"description": "Product features didn't meet customer needs in target segment",
"contributor": "Product Manager",
"category": "Product-Market Fit",
"root_cause": "Insufficient customer research before development"
},
{
"id": "FM-002",
"description": "Quality issues led to negative reviews and returns",
"contributor": "Operations Lead",
"category": "Product Quality",
"root_cause": "Rushed timeline compressed QA testing"
}
],
"market": [
{
"id": "FM-003",
"description": "Competitor launched similar product at 30% lower price",
"contributor": "Sales Director",
"category": "Competitive Response",
"root_cause": "Underestimated competitor agility"
}
],
"execution": [
{
"id": "FM-004",
"description": "Key talent left mid-project, causing knowledge loss",
"contributor": "Project Lead",
"category": "Team",
"root_cause": "No succession planning or documentation"
}
],
"external": [
{
"id": "FM-005",
"description": "Economic downturn reduced customer budgets",
"contributor": "Finance Lead",
"category": "Economic",
"root_cause": "No contingency for demand scenarios"
}
]
}
Risk Assessment
# Assess each failure mode
risk_assessment = {
"FM-001": {
"likelihood": 0.4, # estimated probability
"impact": "high",
"impact_score": 4,
"detectability": "low", # how easily we'd see it coming
"risk_priority": 6.4, # likelihood * impact * (1/detectability)
},
"FM-002": {
"likelihood": 0.3,
"impact": "high",
"impact_score": 4,
"detectability": "medium",
"risk_priority": 3.6
}
# ... assess all failure modes
}
Mitigation Actions
# Define mitigations
mitigation_actions = [
{
"failure_mode_ids": ["FM-001"],
"action": "Conduct additional customer discovery with 20 target segment customers",
"owner": "Product Manager",
"due_date": "Before development start",
"resources_needed": "Research budget $50K",
"success_indicator": "Validated feature prioritization from customer feedback"
},
{
"failure_mode_ids": ["FM-002"],
"action": "Extend QA timeline by 4 weeks, add beta testing phase",
"owner": "Operations Lead",
"due_date": "Update in project plan",
"resources_needed": "Schedule adjustment",
"success_indicator": "Defect rate < 1% at launch"
},
{
"failure_mode_ids": ["FM-003"],
"action": "Develop competitive response playbook with pricing scenarios",
"owner": "Sales Director",
"due_date": "30 days before launch",
"resources_needed": "Competitive intelligence input",
"success_indicator": "Response plan for 3 competitor scenarios"
}
]
Input Schema
{
"session_config": {
"decision": "string",
"investment": "number",
"timeline": "string",
"success_criteria": ["string"],
"participants": ["object"]
},
"failure_scenario": {
"narrative": "string",
"instructions": ["string"]
},
"failure_modes": ["object"],
"risk_assessment": "object",
"mitigations": ["object"]
}
Output Schema
{
"session_summary": {
"decision": "string",
"date": "string",
"participants": "number",
"failure_modes_identified": "number"
},
"failure_modes": [
{
"id": "string",
"description": "string",
"category": "string",
"likelihood": "number",
"impact": "string",
"risk_priority": "number"
}
],
"top_risks": ["object"],
"mitigation_plan": [
{
"action": "string",
"owner": "string",
"due_date": "string",
"addresses": ["string"]
}
],
"follow_up": {
"next_review_date": "string",
"unaddressed_risks": ["string"]
}
}
Pre-mortem Benefits
| Benefit | Mechanism |
|---|---|
| Overcomes overconfidence | Assumes failure, forcing critical thinking |
| Surfaces hidden concerns | Safe space to voice doubts |
| Identifies blind spots | Multiple perspectives |
| Enables proactive action | Time to mitigate before commitment |
| Builds team alignment | Shared understanding of risks |
Best Practices
- Conduct before final commitment, not after
- Make the failure scenario vivid and specific
- Ensure psychological safety for honest input
- Include diverse perspectives (skeptics welcome)
- Focus on actionable failure modes
- Convert insights to concrete mitigations
- Follow up to ensure actions are completed
Facilitation Tips
- Use independent writing before group discussion
- Encourage specificity ("John missed the deadline" vs. "delays occurred")
- Separate idea generation from evaluation
- Give equal airtime to all participants
- Document everything, even unlikely scenarios
- End with concrete next steps
Integration Points
- Feeds into Risk Register Manager for tracking
- Connects with Decision Quality Assessor for process evaluation
- Supports Debiasing Coach agent
- Integrates with Decision Journal for documentation
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