This Is A Brilliant Approach To Making Better Decisions
It's called the premortem. And, while it may be Kahneman's favorite, he didn't come up with it. A fellow by the name of Gary Klein invented the premortem technique.
A premortem works something like this. When you're on the verge of making a decision, not just any decision but a big decision, you call a meeting. At the meeting you ask each member of your team to imagine that it's a year later.
Premortems encourage people to use "prospective hindsight," or, more accurately, to talk in "future perfect tense." Instead of thinking, "we will devote the next six months to implementing a new HR software initiative," for example, we travel to the future and think "we have devoted six months to implementing a new HR software package."
1. This approach helps people overcome blind spots.
2. This approach helps people bridge short-term and long-term thinking.
3. Looking back dampens excessive optimism.
Max Bazerman, a Harvard professor, believes that we're less prone to irrational optimism when we predict the fate of projects that are not our own. For example, when it comes to friends' home renovation projects, most people estimate the costs will run 25 to 50 percent over budget. When it comes to our projects however, they will be "completed on time and near the project costs."
4. A premortem challenges the illusion of consensus.
Most times not everyone on a team agrees with the course of action. Even when you have enough cognitive diversity in the room, people still keep their mouths shut because people in power tend to reward people who agree with them while punishing those who have the courage to speak up with a dissenting view.