The Murder Board Planning Process
by Nabeel S. Qureshi • Founder (Stealth); Former Forward Deployed Engineer at Ex-Palantir
Former Forward Deployed Engineer at Palantir for 8 years, working on projects with Airbus, the NHS, and the US Government. Also a visiting scholar at the Mercatus Center and former VP at GoCardless.
🎙️ Episode Context
Nabeel Qureshi reveals the inner workings of Palantir, focusing on their unique 'Forward Deployed Engineer' model that embeds technical talent directly with customers to solve high-stakes problems. He explains how Palantir successfully transitioned from a consulting-heavy service model to a high-margin software platform by abstracting customer-specific solutions into generalizable products like Foundry.
Problem It Solves
Prevents weak ideas from consuming resources and ensures operational plans are robust before execution starts.
Framework Overview
A rigorous pre-mortem process where a project lead presents a plan to a group of smart, disinterested parties whose sole job is to tear the plan apart to find flaws in logic, strategy, or principles.
🧠 Framework Structure
Write a 2-Page Memo: Vision, goals, a...
Define Controversial Principles: Prin...
Invite Disinterested Critics: Include...
Tear It Apart: The goal of the meetin...
When to Use
Before launching a major new initiative, product line, or high-stakes customer engagement.
Common Mistakes
Creating principles everyone agrees with (e.g., 'be inclusive') instead of principles that force trade-offs.
Real World Example
Nabeel used this for new deployments at Palantir, ensuring that principles like 'Optimize for speed over stability' were explicitly debated before entering a client site.
You invite three or four smart folks who don't know anything about the project and their job is just to tear apart your plan.
— Nabeel S. Qureshi