post-mortems-retrospectives

SKILL.md

Guide teams through learning-focused post-mortems and retrospectives using frameworks from 11 product leaders.

Helps frame exercises as blameless learning opportunities rather than blame-focused reviews, with emphasis on psychological safety and honest sharing

Covers core principles including pre-mortems with kill criteria, reframing failure as growth, and institutionalizing weekly impact and learnings reviews

Guides users through structured questioning to surface systemic insights, early missed signals, and actionable learnings that influence future decisions

Flags common mistakes including blame-focused framing, lack of follow-through, and optimizing scores over learning

Post-mortems & Retrospectives

Help the user run effective post-mortems and retrospectives that drive genuine learning using frameworks from 11 product leaders.

How to Help

When the user asks for help with post-mortems or retrospectives:

Understand the context - Ask whether this is after a failure, a success, or a routine checkpoint

Set the right tone - Help them frame the exercise as learning-focused rather than blame-focused

Structure for insights - Guide them toward formats that surface actionable learnings

Ensure follow-through - Help them create mechanisms to act on what they learn

Core Principles

Pre-mortems need kill criteria

Annie Duke: "A pre-mortem is only effective if it results in 'kill criteria' - pre-determined signals that will trigger a pivot or shutdown." Identify early signals that a project is failing during the pre-mortem and pre-commit to specific actions if those signals are met.