Business Premortems
Management gurus have long advised business leaders to frequently reevaluate their core business assumptions, and business books are full of case studies of the bad things that happen when companies fail to heed that advice.
But it is not easy to do, in part because human beings find it so difficult to envision a future that differs significantly from the present.
Richard Thaler, a father of behavioral economics, has suggested one way to break down barriers to envisioning a different future: business “premortems.” In 2017, he recommended “pre-mortem” as “the” scientific term or concept that most deserves to be more widely known.”
Thaler notes that there are two primary ways that premortems can help.
The consequences of failing to think about the future more aggressively can be severe.
Pre-Mortems draw on the tools and benefits of both story-telling and scenario planning for thinking about climate futures, and the Climate Web is ideally suited to supporting such efforts. For more information contact info@climatographer.com, or explore the Climate Web through the links shown at right.
These links will help you explore Pre-Mortems further
- Pre-mortem
- 2017 Thaler_What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to be More Widely Known? The Premortem
- 2014 Kahneman_Premortem to eliminate thinking biases. - YouTube
- 2007/9 Performing a Project Premortem
- 2014/5 This column will change your life: hindsight – it's not just for past events
- 2018/9 Scenario Planning and the Premortem
- 2019/9 Save Your Projects from Failure with Pre-Mortem Scenario Planning