A risk management premortem is an approach where the project manager and project stakeholders envision a future where the project has failed, and then work backward to determine the story and circumstances that could have led to the project failure (Klein, 2007).
All risk comes from uncertainty. Uncertainty comes in two forms
- Epistemic uncertainty creates reducible risk. This risk can be reduced with direct risk reducition actions paid for my the project.
- Aleatory uncertainty creates irreducible risk. This risk can only be handled (not reduced) with margin. Cost margin, schedule margin, or technical margin.
