Pre-Mortem is imagine the project failed; explain why. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0542, within the Decision family. The core principle: imagine the project failed; explain why. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Imagine the project failed; explain why.
Plain-English Definition
Imagine the project failed; explain why.
Feynman Explanation
Easier to predict failure than success — and far more useful.
Core Principle
Imagine the project failed; explain why.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Imagine the project failed; explain why.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Reduces planning fallacy and groupthink.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Easier to predict failure than success — and far more useful.
Examples
- Capital decisions stress-tested before commit.
- Reduces planning fallacy and groupthink.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
Executives usually notice this element only after it has cost something. By then it looks like a one-off. It is not. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: imagine the project failed; explain why. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: easier to predict failure than success — and far more useful. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, reduces planning fallacy and groupthink. It is amplified whenever reduces planning fallacy and groupthink. Inside organizations that shows up as reduces planning fallacy and groupthink. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to run on every major commitment as standard process. Design against it the way you would design against a known failure mode — assume it will appear, and price the exploit before someone finds it.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Run on every major commitment as standard process.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Run on every major commitment as standard process.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Imagine the failure beforehand; investigate it afterward.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Inattention or forgetfulness caused by low attention, hyperfocus, or distraction.
Forgetting to compare an offer with the next-best alternative.
Outcomes that could have happened but did not.
Overthinking a situation so that decision-making stalls.
The first number on the table silently sets the range for every number after it.
Tversky & Kahneman's classic: identical outcomes flip from 'risk averse' to 'risk seeking' when framed as lives saved vs. lives lost.
Our perception is shaped by what we selectively pay attention to.
Favoring suggestions from automated systems over conflicting human judgment.
A color appears different depending on adjacent colors.
Decisions are constrained by available information, cognitive limits, and time.
Where Pre-Mortem is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Pre-Mortem
- What is Pre-Mortem?
- Pre-Mortem is imagine the project failed; explain why. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0542, within the Decision family. The core principle: imagine the project failed; explain why. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Pre-Mortem?
- Reduces planning fallacy and groupthink. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0542).
- How is Pre-Mortem exploited?
- Reduces planning fallacy and groupthink.
- How do you design around Pre-Mortem?
- Run on every major commitment as standard process.
- Which behavioral dimension does Pre-Mortem belong to?
- Pre-Mortem is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Decision", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0542 and its evidence grade is B.