“사전 부검을 (Premortem) 할 수도 있습니다. 사전 부검이란, 일어날지 모르는 사건이 일어났다고 가정한 뒤에 그 사건과 관련된 주변 정보를 구체화하는 것입니다. 즉, 우리가 시간을 앞서가 있다고 가정을 해 보고, 타임머신을 타고 미래에 가서 현재를 되돌아보는 것입니다”
Research conducted in 1989 by Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and Nancy Pennington, of the University of Colorado, found that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. We have used prospective hindsight to devise a method called a premortem, which helps project teams identify risks at the outset.
… Although many project teams engage in prelaunch risk analysis, the premortem’s prospective hindsight approach offers benefits that other methods don’t. Indeed, the premortem doesn’t just help teams to identify potential problems early on. It also reduces the kind of damn-the-torpedoes attitude often assumed by people who are overinvested in a project. Moreover, in describing weaknesses that no one else has mentioned, team members feel valued for their intelligence and experience, and others learn from them. The exercise also sensitizes the team to pick up early signs of trouble once the project gets under way. In the end, a premortem may be the best way to circumvent any need for a painful postmortem.
Tested 3 hypotheses concerning people’s predictions of task completion times: (1) people underestimate their own but not others’ completion times, (2) people focus on plan-based scenarios rather than on relevant past experiences while generating their predictions, and (3) people’s attributions diminish the relevance of past experiences. Five studies were conducted with a total of 465 undergraduates. Results support each hypothesis. Ss’ predictions of their completion times were too optimistic for a variety of academic and nonacademic tasks. Think-aloud procedures revealed that Ss focused primarily on future scenarios when predicting their completion times. The optimistic bias was eliminated for Ss instructed to connect relevant past experiences with their predictions. Ss attributed their past prediction failures to external, transient, and specific factors. Observer Ss overestimated others’ completion times and made greater use of relevant past experiences.
“In 1871, the colony of British Columbia agreed to join the new country of Canada on the condition that a transcontinental railway reach the west coast by 1881. In fact, because of the intervention of an economic depression and political changes, the last spike was not driven until 1885, 4 years after the predicted date of completion. Nearly 100 years later, in 1969, the mayor of Montreal proudly announced that the 1976 Olympics would feature a state-of-the-art coliseum covered by the first retractable roof ever built on a stadium. According to mayor Jean Drapeau, the entire Olympic venture would cost $ 120 million and “can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby” (Colombo, 1987, p. 269). Because of economic problems, strikes, and other construction delays, the stadium roof was not in place until 1989, 13 years after the predicted date of completion—and cost $120 million by itself! Many people consider the Sydney Opera House to be the champion of all planning disasters. According to original estimates in 1957, the opera house would be completed early in 1963 for $7 million. A scaled-down version of the opera house finally opened in 1973 at a cost of $102 million (Hall, 1980).” (pg. 366)
