Postmortems: Convert completed work into a changed operating standard
A project ends with lessons discussed but no durable record of what happened, why it happened, or which mechanism will change.
The useful response is not another status layer. It is a mechanism that can convert completed work into a changed operating standard.
What the skill produces
The Postmortems skill turns supplied context into a blameless postmortem with timeline, result versus plan, causes, lessons, actions, owners, and dates. It should expose missing evidence instead of inventing it. The free skill packages this mechanism for explicit use. It does not fetch remote instructions, and the practitioner remains responsible for the facts and final decision.
Run the mechanism
- Compare the intended result and plan with what occurred.
- Use evidence to identify causes, contributing conditions, and unknowns.
- Assign changes to the process, playbook, or control and review them later.
The accountable owner reviews the output against the source evidence before it is used. Material unknowns remain labeled and receive an owner and date when they affect the decision.
Failure check
A retrospective without a changed mechanism asks the organization to relearn the same lesson.
Adoption test
At the next similar project, verify whether prior actions were implemented and whether the same failure pattern returned.
Keep the skill only if the result improves against that baseline. Revise the playbook when the same operating failure survives more than one review cycle.
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