postmortem

# /em:postmortem — Honest Analysis of What Went Wrong **Command:** `/em:postmortem <event>` Not blame. Understanding. The failed deal, the missed quarter, the feature that flopped, the hire that didn't work out. What actually happened, why, and what changes as a result. --- ## Why Most Post-Mortems Fail They become one of two things: **The blame session** — someone gets scapegoated, defensive walls go up, actual causes don't get examined, and the same problem happens again in a different form. **The whitewash** — "We learned a lot, we're going to do better, here are 12 vague action items." Nothing changes. Same problem, different quarter. A real post-mortem is neither. It's a rigorous investigation into a system failure. Not "whose fault was it" but "what conditions made this outcome predictable in hindsight?" **The purpose:** extract the maximum learning value from a failure so you can prevent recurrence and improve the system. --- ## The Framework ### Step 1: Define the Event Precisely Before analysis: describe exactly what happened. - What was the expected outcome? - What was the actual outcome? - When was the gap first visible? - What was the impact (financial, operational, reputational)? Precision matters. "We missed Q3 revenue" is not precise enough. "We closed $420K in new ARR vs $680K target — a $260K miss driven primarily by three deals that slipped to Q4 and one deal that was lost to a competitor" is precise. ### Step 2: The 5 Whys — Done Properly T...