A Pre-Mortem Review

For this month’s FREE2COMPETE resource, I want to share with you a thought exercise that I learned from a good friend who operates in the business world years ago called A PRE-MORTEM REVIEW. If you coach a fall sport and have been prepping for the season that starts in just over a week, now is the perfect time to go through this individually, with your coaching staff, and your team.

In this business world this is often used before purchasing a business or launching a new product. The business team fast forwards to the future and makes the assumption that the business that is purchased or the product that is launched has failed. Based on what they know right now, they try to think through reasonable explanations of why that happen as well as think of what could be the explanation based on something that they don’t know right now. This thought exercise allows them to get in front of potential business killers and discuss what signs they need to look for to avoid them and how to guard against them happening

In my experience lots of coaches are really good at doing a POST-MORTEM REVIEW. I think most coaches reflect on their results and process through what caused those AFTER a season is over. I do this myself and believe it is wise to conduct one of these with your coaching staff every year.

However, just like an autopsy doesn’t help the person who it is performed on, a POST-MORTEM REVIEW doesn’t help the team you just finished coaching. I believe great coaches regularly perform PRE-MORTEM REVIEWS as a way to protect their culture and set-up guardrails for their team. So, let’s walk through what this thought exercise looks like.

PRE-MORTEM REVIEW

1. IMAGINE FAILURE: Define what failure looks like for this team. I would encourage you to consider two categories RELATIONSHIP failure and RESULTS failure.

   1. RELATIONSHIP failure focuses on the connections between teammates along with coaches and players. What does it look like if this team falls apart from the inside out.

   2. RESULTS failure focuses on falling short of performance goals. This should be imagined with the team falling apart and the team staying connected.

2. BRAINSTORM CAUSES: Think through reasons why the failure identified above happened. I would encourage you to analyze actions, behaviors, and attitudes that are seen on the team right now! There are so many causes that could happen, so I think it is really important to use the information and data we have about our team RIGHT NOW as we process through this step. Team failure never happens because of a single moment. There are always symptoms that emerged before the failure that are easy to see in hindsight. For this process to work, we need to practice foresight. If this action, behavior, or attitude that we are seeing right now continues, where does that take us? Don’t excuse a way a potential crack that could lead to a break down.

3. IDENTIFY VULNERABILITIES: When we process through those current actions, behaviors, and attitudes that could lead to a break down in the future, these are our vulnerabilities. I would encourage you to categorize your concern with these vulnerabilities as HIGH, MEDIUM, or LOW.

4. DEVELOP MITIGATION STRATEGIES: As a team, you need to think through how you are going to prevent or minimize the opportunities for these potential causes to happen and for our vulnerabilities to be exposed. This step should include a two important conversations:

   1. Discuss signs and symptoms that we are headed down a path towards failure. This helps the team know what to be on the look out for.

   2. Discuss who is responsible for protecting the team from this concern. Could be coaches. Could be players. Could be captains. Could be everyone.

DOING THIS WITH YOUR STAFF/TEAM FOR THE FIRST TIME:

If you’ve never done something like this before with your staff or team, I don’t recommend doing this all in one setting. I would recommend doing this over the period of a week. Taking this process in smaller bites which includes time to think and process often helps the conversation go better. Here is a potential timeline:

SESSION 1: Explain what a PRE-MORTEM REVIEW is and share step #1 IMAGINE FAILURE. Ask your staff/team to come prepared and ready to share in Session #2. Session #1 could happen via email.

SESSION 2: As a team share, discuss, and define what failure will look like for this team. Then share with them step #2 BRAINSTORM CAUSES and ask them to come prepared and ready to share in Session #3.

SESSION 3: As a team share, discuss, and define 3-5 most likely causes. Then share with them step #3 IDENTIFY VULNERABILITIES and ask them to come prepared and ready to share in Session #4.

SESSION 4: As a team share, discuss, and identify 3-5 vulnerabilities. Then share with them step #4 MITIGATION STRATEGIES and ask them to come prepared and ready to share in Session #5.

SESSION 5: As a team share and discuss strategies. Don’t end this conversation without discussing who is responsible. If we don’t assign responsibility clearly, it is easy for everyone on the team to assume somebody else is taking care of it and, in my opinion, you just wasted your time.

FINAL THOUGHT

I would encourage you to review the resource linked below that we shared in July 2024. This post talks about the idea of taking just a few minutes after practice each day to journal your thoughts about the workout and your team that day.

If you do this on a regular basis, it becomes an extremely helpful tool and resource to helping you efficiently and thoroughly complete the PRE-MORTEM REVIEW.