Created by:
Rebecca Stewart
What is an AI-powered premortem worksheet?
An AI-powered premortem worksheet is a six-step exercise for imagining how a plan fails before you pitch it, instead of explaining the failure afterward in a postmortem. You name the plan and its assumptions, widen the picture with behavioral risk, then use three thinking techniques to challenge your own reasoning with AI as a partner that has no stake in your success.
What's inside the template?
Six steps, each with instructional copy and fill-in fields:
- Name the plan
- Add behavioral factors
- Run the risk questions with AI
- Pause and prioritize
- Explore mitigation and contingency
- Reframe the problem
How to use the template
Start with step 1, but don't overthink it: name the plan and its assumptions at a high level before you've locked down specifics, then let steps 2 and 3 expand naturally into behavioral risk and AI-generated questions. Treat this as one broadening conversation, not three separate exercises.
The one place to slow down is Step 4: AI will hand you more risk than you can act on, so pick only the two or three that would genuinely change your outcome, and treat that judgment call as yours alone. No amount of AI output replaces knowing what your organization and your credibility can actually absorb.
For each risk you keep, write down both a mitigation and a contingency; most plans answer "how would we reduce this" and skip "what do we do if it happens anyway," which is usually the question stakeholders actually ask. If Step 6's reframe changes how you see the problem, revisit steps 4 and 5 rather than leaving it as an afterthought.
Download your AI-powered premortem worksheet
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