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SynthBoard

Method · Pre-mortem

AI Pre-Mortem —
imagine the failure before it happens.

A pre-mortem assumes the plan already failed and works back to why. SynthBoard runs it with a board: the Skeptic, the Devil’s Advocate and the experts your plan needs each tell the story of how it died — and the memo says what would flip the call.

Start free See how a board works

An example: the Skeptic asks first, then the board hands back the call and what would flip it.

In short

What is an AI pre-mortem?

An AI pre-mortem is a structured exercise in which a board of AI experts assumes your plan has already failed, then reasons back from the failure to the risks, blind spots and assumptions that caused it.

The technique comes from the psychologist Gary Klein, who described it in Harvard Business Review in 2007. Treating the failure as a fact — why did this go wrong? — produces specific stories instead of abstract risks, and specific stories can be tested before the plan ships.

Who sits
The Skeptic, the Devil’s Advocate and the experts your plan needs. She proposes the seats; name anyone you want.
What comes back
The call, how sure the board is (never above 90), what would flip it, who disagreed, and a first step with a date.
How long
About 6–10 minutes for a board, shown on the card before it runs.
What it costs
A board on Free reads about 95 credits on its card. Each card shows what a room like it typically costs; you pay for what it really used.

Two pre-mortems

It failed. Here’s why.
Before it does.

A launch and a resignation, each argued from the seats that would see the failure first. Examples, trimmed for length.

A March launch

Work · Board of 3

We launch our B2B scheduling tool in March at $49 a month. Run a pre-mortem: it’s next December and the launch failed. Why?

Chief of staff

A pre-mortem needs seats paid to find the failure: The Skeptic, The Customer and The CFO. Each tells the story of how it failed from their own seat, then they react to one another.

  • The SkepticRisk Assessor
  • The CustomerUser Voice
  • The CFOFinancial Controller

Asked first

Who has paid for this so far, even a little?

Nobody yetA few pilotsPaying customers

The board’s call

Launch in March — to the five pilot teams first, not the public list.

The failure story all three told: a public launch draws trial users who never connect their calendars, and churn arrives before word of mouth does. A closed launch to teams already scheduling keeps the first cohort real.

Confidence61 · Moderate

The CFO disagreed

“Five teams at $49 prove nothing about the price. Test $79 on the next five.”

First step Email the five pilot teams the March date and the priceby Friday

Board of 3 · about 95 credits on the card · an example, not a recorded run

Quitting to freelance

Life · Board of 3

I plan to quit my agency job in June and freelance. Two clients are lined up and I have four months of savings. Pre-mortem it: a year from now I’m back in a job. What happened?

Chief of staff

Your board: The Skeptic, The CFO and The Empath. Each tells the story of how this went wrong, then they argue about which story is most likely.

  • The SkepticRisk Assessor
  • The CFOFinancial Controller
  • The EmpathPeople Advocate

Asked first

Are the two clients signed, or verbally committed?

SignedVerbalOne of each

The board’s call

Resign in June only if one client signs a three-month retainer first; otherwise move the date to September.

The most likely failure: one client delays, the savings cover the gap, and the second gap comes before a third client does. A signed retainer turns four months of savings into seven.

Confidence66 · Moderate

The Empath disagreed

“The plan is all money. The risk nobody priced is a year of working alone after ten on a team.”

First step Send both clients a three-month retainer proposalthis week

Board of 3 · about 95 credits on the card · an example, not a recorded run

What a pre-mortem gives you

Failure stories, then a call.
Not a list of generic risks.

Failure stories from opposed seats

Each expert tells a different story of how the plan died, from their own seat. On a decision, two of them are assigned opposed positions, and one is there to argue against the obvious answer.

They ask before they imagine

When the failure turns on something only you know — who has paid, what is signed — the expert asks first. Tap a chip, or ask for their best guess.

The call, and what would flip it

The memo names the call, how sure the board is, the condition that would change it and who disagreed. Confidence drops with dissent and is never above 90.

A first step before you commit

A pre-mortem ends in one first step with a date. It waits under Open and gets one check-in on its day.

Read before the launch meeting

Send the memo to a partner or the team as a read-only page anyone can open, or export it as PDF or Markdown.

Who sits

Who imagines the failure.
Each one holds a position.

The seats that see a plan die first. She proposes who sits for your plan; name anyone you want on the board.

Pick an expert

Hover, tap or tab throughSwipe, then tap one
  • GPT
  • Claude
  • Gemini
  • Grok

Seats are spread across model families: GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and more.

Questions

Fair questions.
Straight answers.

What people ask before they run their first pre-mortem.

What is an AI pre-mortem?

An AI pre-mortem is a structured exercise where a panel of expert AI advisors imagines a future in which your plan has failed, then reasons backward from the failure to identify the risks, blind spots, and assumptions that caused it. It is Gary Klein’s classic pre-mortem technique, run with multi-advisor AI at any hour.

Who invented the pre-mortem?

Research psychologist Gary Klein popularized the pre-mortem in a 2007 Harvard Business Review article. The premise: teams identify far more risks when they imagine a failure has already occurred than when they try to brainstorm what could go wrong in the abstract.

Why does imagining failure surface more risks than brainstorming?

Prospective hindsight. When you imagine that failure has already happened, your mind generates specific causes — narratives are easier to construct than abstract hypotheticals. Research on prospective hindsight found that people name more, and more specific, reasons for an outcome when they treat it as having already happened.

Why add AI to the pre-mortem?

A pre-mortem done alone or with a small team inherits the team’s blind spots. A panel of AI advisors with different perspectives — the CFO, the Skeptic, the Regulator, the Customer — imagines failure modes your team would never generate. The technique gets sharper.

What decisions benefit most from an AI pre-mortem?

Any irreversible or costly-to-reverse decision: product launches, fundraising, pivots, M&A, major hires, pricing changes, market entries. Anywhere the cost of being wrong is significantly higher than the cost of an hour of structured analysis.

How is a pre-mortem different from a SWOT analysis?

SWOT is a categorization exercise — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats — and it stays abstract. A pre-mortem generates specific failure narratives and reasons backward to the causes, so the board ends on a call and a first step instead of a grid.

How long does an AI pre-mortem take?

6–10 minutes for a board, shown on the card before it runs. Describe the plan, name the Devil’s Advocate and the Skeptic if you want them seated, and let the experts imagine specific failures. The memo names the call, the failure stories that shaped it, what would flip it, who disagreed, and a first step with a date.

How much does it cost?

Free to start with 250 credits to start plus 150 credits monthly. A pre-mortem is a board, and a board shows its price on the card before it runs — about 95 credits for a 3-seat board on Free. Each card shows what a room like it typically costs; you pay for what it really used. Nothing runs until you tap.

Next

SynthBoard (synthboard.ai) is one place for your business, your life, and every hard call. Your Chief of Staff keeps what you tell her on file, and 24 named experts on different AI models take the calls — one expert for a consult, a board with opposed seats for the hard ones — and hand back a memo with the call, the dissent and the first move. How it works.

Imagine the failure.
Then prevent it.

Pre-mortem our March launchPre-mortem my plan to go freelanceWhy would this price rise fail?

It waits in her box after you sign up. Nothing is sent until you press send.