Give AI the actual plan.
Use the proposal or system you are about to approve, with its relevant assumptions and dependencies. A specific plan gives the review something to examine. A request for generic risks usually gives you generic answers.
Assume it failed.
Ask AI to imagine the project failed six months from now and explain what you may have missed. Look for weaknesses in the plan, fragile dependencies, or assumptions nobody has tested. This is a way to surface possibilities, not a prediction of what will happen.
Fix what you can act on.
Review the scenarios and separate useful concerns from noise. A pre-mortem can draw attention toward things outside your control, so ask which risks you can actually test or reduce. Correct the meaningful weaknesses before you proceed. The exercise does not guarantee success; it gives you another chance to question the plan before the cost of changing it rises.
Sources
Sources
- Jeff Fargo, Fargo Talks: I Make AI Eviscerate My Proposal Before I Send It
- Gary Klein, “Performing a Project Premortem,” Harvard Business Review — the practical project-management method behind the pre-mortem.
- Mitchell, Russo & Pennington, “Back to the Future: Temporal Perspective in the Explanation of Events” — the 1989 prospective-hindsight research underlying the idea.
- Academy of Management Proceedings: “Problems with Premortems” — later research identifying limitations and possible attribution bias in the technique.
Transcript
Verbatim from the Fargo Walks clip, as recorded.
Before I send out a proposal or deploy a new system. I ask AI to absolutely eviscerate it. I tell it, it's been six months. This thing went nowhere. It died. What did I miss?? It's called a pre-mortem. And it'll help find those weak spots right now that can avoid some serious problems in the future. I'm Jeff Fargo. I can help streamline and scale your business with AI. Go forth.