Pre-Mortems with Kill Criteria
by Annie Duke • Author, Special Partner at First Round Capital
Former professional poker player (World Series of Poker winner) turned decision science expert and consultant.
🎙️ Episode Context
Annie Duke joins Lenny to dismantle common decision-making misconceptions. She explains why intuition needs to be made explicit, why meetings should never be used for idea discovery, and how to shorten 'long' feedback loops in venture capital and product management. She also dives into the psychology of quitting, introducing concepts like kill criteria to overcome sunk cost fallacy.
Problem It Solves
Combats the sunk cost fallacy and the tendency to rationalize bad signals once a project is live (the 'climbing Everest in a blizzard' effect).
Framework Overview
An enhancement to the standard pre-mortem that moves beyond simply imagining failure to establishing pre-committed actions based on specific negative signals.
⚡ Step-by-Step Framework
Thinking about failure isn't enough; you must commit to actions.
Identify signals that correlate with the failure state.
Establish 'Kill Criteria': If I see X signal, I will take Y action.
Use 'waste' as a prospective concept, not retrospective (ignore sunk cost).
Thinking about failure isn't enough; you must commit to actions.
Identify signals that correlate with the failure state.
Establish 'Kill Criteria': If I see X signal, I will take Y action.
Use 'waste' as a prospective concept, not retrospective (ignore sunk cost).
When to Use
Before launching a new product, signing a long-term contract, or pursuing a sales lead.
Common Mistakes
Doing a pre-mortem but not changing the plan, or identifying risks without setting a specific trigger for stopping.
Real World Example
A sales team identified signals for dead deals (e.g., customer only asks about price, won't demo). The kill criteria: If they won't demo, stop pursuing immediately.
A pre-mortem, it's great only if you set up kill criteria. Commit to actions that you're going to take if you see those signals.
— Annie Duke