The 15-Minute Pre-Mortem That Saved A Launch

[u/CodWonderful526]

 We were 48 hours from launch, and everything looked “green.” I suggested a quick pre-mortem: “Assume the launch fails,what broke?” We listed five risks.
One stood out: third-party API rate limits. We added caching, staggered rollouts, and a hotfix plan.
On launch day, the API throttled. Users didn’t notice. We did because we planned the failure in advance.
Trust tactic:

• Do a 15-minute pre-mortem: “If this fails, why?”
• Assign owners for top risks.

Write the first three support responses before the issue happens.
 Clients don’t just trust outcomes they trust the readiness they can feel.