What Is Failure Planning?
Failure planning is not about being a pessimist or expecting to fail. Instead, it is a form of strategic foresight where you systematically identify potential obstacles and weaknesses in your plan before you even start. Unlike traditional risk management,
which can sometimes be a box-ticking exercise, failure planning is a dynamic and imaginative process. It asks a team to assume a project has already failed and then work backwards to understand why. This simple shift in perspective—from asking “what might go wrong?” to “what did go wrong?”—creates a powerful psychological change. It moves the conversation from abstract possibilities to concrete storytelling, making potential problems feel more tangible and easier to solve.
The Premortem: A Practical Guide
The most popular method for failure planning is the 'premortem', a term coined by psychologist Gary Klein. It's a simple but profound exercise. First, gather your team before a project kicks off. Tell them to imagine it is six months in the future and the project has failed completely. Then, give everyone a few minutes to silently write down all the reasons that could have led to this failure. This step is crucial, as it avoids groupthink and allows even the quietest team members to voice their concerns without fear of being seen as negative. Afterward, go around the room and have each person share one reason from their list until all points are collected. This process unearths risks that nobody would have mentioned in a standard planning meeting, where optimism bias often reigns.
Turning Insights Into a Stronger Plan
Once you have a list of all the potential reasons for failure, the next step is to consolidate and prioritise them. Which of these risks are most likely to occur? Which would have the biggest impact? By discussing these points openly, the team develops a shared understanding of the true challenges ahead. The final, and most important, step is to use these insights to strengthen the original plan. This isn't about creating a hundred different contingency plans. It's about making targeted adjustments to the core strategy to mitigate the most significant risks you've just identified. For example, if a key reason for failure was “poor communication between departments,” the team can proactively build more structured check-ins and shared reporting into the project timeline from day one.
How Planning for Failure Fuels Ambition
Herein lies the paradox: confronting failure head-on actually makes you more ambitious. Many organisations are hesitant to embrace failure because they fear it will create a culture that doesn't value winning. However, the opposite is often true. When a team knows that potential pitfalls have been thoroughly considered and addressed, it builds immense confidence. The project no longer feels like a fragile house of cards. Instead, it feels robust and resilient. This sense of psychological safety encourages teams to take bigger, more calculated risks. With a stronger safety net in place, the team feels empowered to aim higher, explore more innovative ideas, and push boundaries, knowing that their plan is built to withstand pressure. It transforms anxiety about the unknown into a manageable set of challenges.
