Show HN: Premortems, help projects be more successful

by _jss • 13 years ago

6 5 13 years ago

_jss3• 13 years ago

The story of building this app is interesting. I discovered the premortems technique the weekend before last, and challenged myself to build an entire app in 3 days with a full infrastructure (monitoring, customer service, marketing plan).

huhtenberg• 13 years ago

even anonymously to avoid political reprisals!

May want to trim off newrelic and google-analytics snooping scripts from your site then.

_jss3• 13 years ago

The point is that the board owner cannot see who raised the individual concerns, not that it isn't stored.

People who wrote concerns can go back and edit, but it is hidden from view.

Also, you cannot flip an Anonymous board to "Show Names" after concerns are raised.

bradfordarner• 13 years ago

I'm intrigued by 'premortems' because the name sounds interesting. However, I find myself very hesitant to pay with my email for a 'free' signup unless I know what it is. Even with the examples, I have no idea what a 'premortem' is or what form that takes in your app; its value is still a complete unknown to me even after visiting your site and blog.

I don't see any unique value proposition that offers me value. For those who understand what a 'premortem' is they might find it valuable but I cannot even begin to understand it nor do I find it necessary to invest time enough to find out because I don't understand its value. In the words of Clayton Christensen, what job is it accomplishing? When I walk by a restaurant that is new, I have no idea what the food might taste like but at least I know what value food offers. In this case, I don't even understand the value that 'premortems' offer.

So, I would offer the following suggestions:

1. Give a clear, one line explanation of what can be achieved with a 'premortem' (i.e. what job is getting done; more successful projects doesn't count as a tagline because it gives no explanation of what that means. You set X = 'Premortem' and Y = 'Successful project' but there is no explanation given of the correlation between X and Y.)

2. Give a clear demonstration of that being achieved with an example 'premortem' (i.e. how the job is done with your site)

3. Show pictures/screenshots of that being done (There is currently too much reading to be done on the site)

Once again the name is interesting enough to get me to write this explanation. Thus, there is at least minimal value in the name. I'm intrigued but purely by curiosity. The curiosity is simply a vessel waiting to be filled in order to create value.

_jss3• 13 years ago

Wow! Thank you. This is really awesome feedback.

I really did drop the ball on that, this is the second person to bring that up. I intended to record a video for the launch explaining it (Premortems in 60 seconds) but couldn't find a mic.

I think my favorite post explaining Premortems is on the iDoneThis blog: http://blog.idonethis.com/post/43078049631/the-perks-of-cons...

Again, thank you so much for your great feedback. I really appreciate the time you spent writing it up.

I only spent 3 days on the app so far, it's a weekend project for me, so I'll be making these changes soon (hopefully this coming weekend)

Show HN: Premortems, help projects be more successful

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