Post Mortems and Other Corporate Rituals

Short summary

Most corporate post mortems devolve into blame-shifting rituals where teams emotionally speedrun finger-pointing instead of analyzing systems. The article argues that real learning comes from reconstructing the actual timeline of assumptions and decisions, not the polished mythology people invent after failure. Good post mortems end with specific process changes—weekly customer interviews, decision logs, kill switches—not vague resolutions to 'do better next time.'

• •Post mortems usually become blame games rather than system analyses
• •Effective post mortems reconstruct the real timeline of assumptions and ignored data
• •Good teams end with specific process changes, not motivational platitudes

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