# Pre-mortem

> Imagines the plan has already failed and works back: real threats, paper tigers and the elephants nobody mentions.

Canonical: https://mikereams.com/ai/pre-mortem

Skill · Curated · Planning · updated 2026-10-17. Part of the [AI Library](https://mikereams.com/ai).

What you get: A ranked list of what is most likely to sink the plan, with the mitigations worth doing now.

- Cheap to run on a milestone plan before I approve it.

Source: [phuryn/pm-skills](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/tree/07b34f6/pm-execution/skills/pre-mortem) by Paweł Huryn (MIT), reviewed at 07b34f6. Not hosted here.

Reviewed 2026-10-17.

Tags: risk, planning, milestones