Pre-Mortem and Pre-Parade
Write the future failure and success stories before choosing the path
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 99%
The Pre-Mortem and Pre-Parade pairs two written future narratives. First, imagine the organization performs extraordinarily well over the next three or five years and specify what success means: its products, markets, achievements, and resulting shape. Then write the pre-mortem, describing the future in which the plan failed and the causes of the autopsy. Botha says Sequoia uses both in every contemplated investment memo and in periodic strategy offsites, including a document titled the 2030 autopsy of Sequoia Capital. The contrast crystallizes first-order issues and draws attention toward work that can compound over five to ten years. A two-year review rhythm avoids ritual churn, while a major change in the why-now conditions can trigger an off-cycle reassessment.
Origin
Botha learned the paired exercise from former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers while they served together on Square's board.
Core principles
- 01Write future scenarios instead of merely thinking about them
- 02Failure and success deserve symmetrical examination
- 03Concrete futures expose first-order issues
- 04Long horizons separate compounding priorities from busy work
- 05Revisit early when a material why-now condition changes
How to run it
- 1
Set the horizon
Choose a future far enough away for strategic consequences to compound. Use a specific date or a three-, five-, or ten-year window.
Pro tip Match the horizon to the life of the decision rather than the next reporting period.
Watch out A horizon that is too short will reproduce current priorities.
- 2
Write the pre-parade
Describe the future after extraordinary success. Specify what the organization looks like, what it achieved, which markets it serves, and which products it shipped.
Pro tip Use concrete facts rather than saying the company simply became successful.
Watch out Do not restrict the upside to what already feels probable.
- 3
Write the pre-mortem
Assume the desired outcome did not occur and write the autopsy. Identify the decisions, omissions, and environmental changes that caused the failure.
Pro tip Phrase the scenario as completed history to make the causal account tangible.
Watch out Avoid turning the exercise into an indiscriminate list of every imaginable risk.
- 4
Find first-order issues
Compare the two narratives and isolate the small number of factors that drive both upside and downside. Separate them from urgent but non-compounding activity.
Pro tip Look for capabilities or positions whose absence appears in the autopsy and whose presence appears in the parade.
Watch out Do not mistake a vivid detail for a causal driver.
- 5
Act and revisit
Translate the drivers into current priorities and ownership. Review on a cadence slow enough for meaningful change, but reopen the assumptions after a material why-now event.
Pro tip Botha suggests every two years for a firm-level exercise, with off-cycle exceptions.
Watch out Annual repetition can become ceremony when the strategic facts have not changed.
In the wild
At a strategy offsite, Sequoia imagined that the firm was no longer great in 2030 and wrote what had gone wrong. The discussion surfaced hubris and the risk of losing contact with companies at their earliest formation by drifting toward later-stage investing.
→ The firm made staying at the fountainhead of company formation a first-order strategic priority.
For each contemplated investment, Sequoia writes both the failed future and the successful one. The upside side asks what the company could become if it goes right rather than allowing the decision to be dominated by visible failure modes.
→ Investment decisions include a written account of asymmetric possibility as well as risk.
Common mistakes
Running only the autopsy
A pre-mortem without a pre-parade can overweight risk and suppress the imagination needed to see exceptional upside.
Leaving the futures abstract
The mechanism depends on writing specific products, markets, achievements, and causes rather than discussing success and failure generally.
Repeating without new information
Botha considers yearly firm-level repetition too frequent because the underlying strategic facts often have not changed.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for consequential investments, company strategy, and periodic offsites where the long-term direction matters.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for routine reversible decisions whose consequences do not justify a substantial scenario exercise.
From the transcript
“imagine things go incredibly well over the next three or five years actually write it down don't just think about it”
“for every investment we contemplate we write a pre-mortem and a pre-parade”
“it really crystallizes first order issues”
From the episode
#618: Roelof Botha — Investing with the Best, Ulysses Pacts, The Magic of Founder-Problem Fit, How to Use Pre-Mortems and Pre-Parades, Learning from Crucible Moments, and Daring to Dream
Roelof Botha