What is the Pre-Mortem template?
Start your risk analysis with a general summary of what could go wrong with your project. Be sure to highlight all the different factors that could lead to undesirable events. This exercise can help your team understand the impact of the issues on your project, system, or overall organization and provide a better context for in-depth analysis.
Make the most of the Pre-Mortem template and treat it as an opportunity to dig into details and learn from potential mistakes. Allow your team to identify the root causes of incidents and focus on finding the perfect solutions. Once your incident analysis-based action plan is ready, monitor the progress of your tasks on a virtual whiteboard thanks to update zones and two-way synchronization with Jira.
What are the benefits of the Pre-Mortem template?
Thanks to the Pre-Mortem template, you can:
- Prepare a list of problems that might occur during your project’s lifetime and find solutions to prevent them in the future.
- Brainstorm all factors and root causes that might lead to an incident and discuss them with your team.
- Figure out the biggest risks to a project without blaming anyone for a problem.
- Find solutions to incidents upfront by getting all project team members to think proactively.
- Determine the next steps of your project by feeling a lot more confident in your chances of success.
How to use the Pre-Mortem template in a few steps?
- Open the Pre-Mortem template on a new board or add it to an already existing one.
- Invite your team to the board by sending an email invitation or sharing the board URL.
- Join the audio and video chat with your teammates to see their faces and talk to each other when conducting the pre-mortem session.
- Consider setting up a timer for each part of the exercise to make sure it doesn’t turn into hours-long workshops.
- Start the exercise by stating what might happen in the Incident quadrant. Write down short and concise notes on sticky notes or text blocks.
- Move to the second step of the exercise and brainstorm all the different causes that might lead to the incident. Write them down on sticky notes and place them in the Possible Causes quadrant.
- Continue the pre-mortem session by writing down Key Risks and Solutions in the next quadrants. Define which causes create the biggest risks and brainstorm solutions to prevent the incidents from happening.
- Create the Action Plan at the end of the session by choosing the best solutions and defining the next steps. Use the voting feature to select the best options and turn them into actionable Jira items with two clicks if needed.