Page 190 · Module 08, Decide with Confidence · this screen continues that page
All 108 frameworksPost-Mortem Review
Extract the full learning from every outcome - win or lose
The prompt
Copy & paste readyLabelsReplace theseSwap the role below
Pro tip, from the book
The most valuable Post-Mortem output is the paragraph added to the playbook. Not the action items, those are often forgotten. A one-paragraph insight written while the memory is fresh and placed in a shared document creates institutional knowledge that survives team turnover. Build the habit of writing it before the meeting ends.
Who should run this prompt
Module role profileWho should stress-test your most important decisions? Most bad decisions were not obviously bad at the time — they had a good first-order case and a hidden second-order cost. The roles on this page are designed to surface what you cannot see from inside your own reasoning. Some will challenge your logic. Some will challenge your assumptions. One will challenge whether you are even asking the right question.
Choose any role to drop it into the prompt above. Only the highlighted opening clause changes — the rest of the prompt stays exactly as printed.
◆◆◆◆◆ → ◆ seniority, board level down to specialist◈ outside the organisation
How to make any role sharper
- Add years of experience: "...with 15 years in enterprise SaaS" produces different depth than just the title.
- Add what they care most about: "You care most about [X]" shapes every word of the output.
- Add their communication style: "Be direct. Flag risks first. No jargon." changes the tone entirely.
Use this when
The problem it solvesYour team debriefs informally after projects finish. The same mistakes recur because learning is not systematically captured or applied. Wins are celebrated without understanding what caused them. You are not compounding your experience.
How the framework works
From the printed pageA Post-Mortem is a structured review conducted after a project, campaign, launch, or significant event to extract learning and improve future performance. Unlike a blame session or a celebration, a well-run Post-Mortem is analytically neutral it asks what happened, why it happened, and what will be done differently next time. Amazon pioneered the blameless post-mortem culture in engineering; it applies equally to sales, marketing, product, and leadership decisions. AI can structure a complete Post-Mortem analysis when given the outcome data.
The method, in four moves
Do these in orderRun Post-Mortems on wins as well as failures - understanding what caused a win is equally valuable.
Schedule the Post-Mortem within 2 weeks of the outcome, memory degrades fast.
Focus on process, not people , a good Post-Mortem improves systems, not morale.
The output must include specific changes, a Post-Mortem without action items is a retrospective, not a review. "Blameless" doesn't mean consequence-free, it means the analysis targets the system, not the person. If your Post-Mortem drifts into naming who messed up instead of what broke, you've turned a learning tool back into the blame session it was designed to replace.
Where the framework comes from
Amazon engineering culture — blameless post-mortem · Agile retrospective methodology
Pairs well with
As printed with this frameworkModule 08 — Decide with Confidence
Make better decisions faster, with less regret.
10 frameworks, printed on pages 185–204.
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