The Pre Post-Mortem

For an upcoming, large job, I did a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats". It's a formalized way of assessing both the business opportunity and one's abilities to leverage the opportunity. (Sorry for the market-speak...) SWOT is helpful in thinking realistically about one's strengths and weaknesses -- and it is a more formal way of doing something that I've undertaken for years with clients: the pre post-mortem.

Here's a fictional (but typical) introduction at the height of excitement about a new project.

Me: So, we're all excited about this?

Client: We sure are! This is going to make a big difference in our business.

Me: Yes. But I'd like to ask you to do a little "thought experiment", as Albert Einstein called them. Game?

Client: Uh, sure.

Me: OK. Imagine that it's exactly one year from today. Your project has failed. Miserably. You've lost your job as a result (or their business, if that's more appropriate) and you're asking yourself one question. Which is...

Client: What happened?

Me: And that's just what I want to discuss now. In any project, there are hidden risks. I call them hidden because they're not obvious, but, in my experience, someone has an inkling about what could go wrong.

Client: We're going to discuss this project failing?

Me: Right. Because if we do that now, we can identify the risks and take steps to deal with them before the potential risks turn into an actual disaster.

Whew! Talk about being a wet blanket! The client was excited and looking forward to the project -- and here I'm talking about failure. Yet I've found repeatedly that when we assume that failure has happened and then look to see the cause of it, we can mediate those risks. And since my ultimate job is not to produce code so much as a successful project, it falls on me to tease out those risks so that they can be dealt with.

SWOT analysis is an excellent tool. But if a full SWOT analysis isn't appropriate, at least take the time to do a pre post-mortem with your client. You'll find it, I think, highly revealing -- and your client will thank you later when you deliver a successful project, those risks having been properly handled.