The Group
The group’s main objective was to form an alumni foundation that would encompass the students who were in school during the reign of Mr. Michael Walter. The foundation would be aptly named Walter’s Kids and it would target the students who studied in York High school between the years 1998 and 2013. The foundation was suggested in honor of Mr. Walter who passed away recently. After the initial plans were made, it was time to perform a premortem of the plans. The goal of the group is to set up a foundation that will contribute towards the general improvement of York High school and the community at large.
Premortem
The group then looked into the future to point out any possible failures and pitfalls. All the group members actively voiced their predictions and their fears concerning the survival and performance of the group. In this scenario, the group members assume that the foundation has already been set up but its missions and objectives have been affected by a number of failures. Therefore, the group sought to establish what contributed to the failures by assuming that they have already happened.
Team Members Concerns
The members raised a number of issues that have the potential to become future problems. One recurring issue was that the initiative failed due to its selective association with the Walter-affiliated alumni. The existing alumni association felt that it was being undermined by the new parallel initiative and set out to diminish the new initiative. Another problem that led to the failure of the foundation initiative was the lack of commitment among the targeted members. In another instance, the members supported the initiative for only a short time but they abandoned it after a short time. Consequently, the initiative slowly fizzled out on its own.
Additional Ideas
The members also found that when the original plans for the foundation kept changing and shifting, the members found it too hard to keep up with these changes and their support fizzled out. Another member hypothesized that money management issues led to suspicions between members and this led to the initiative’s demise.
Themes
Almost all the possible failures of the foundation have to do with management issues. The management issues involve marketing the idea, coming up with fresh ideas that can sustain the interest of the members and managing resources. It is also clear that the initiative’s main strengths or weaknesses lie in the will of its members.
Revised Plan
After the premortem had been conducted, the team members sought to revise the plans of the foundation initiative with the view of avoiding the hypothesized pitfalls. The first major improvement was to ensure that the initiative had the absolute goodwill of the existing alumni organization. The improvement on the initial plans eliminates the possibility of conflicts of interest between the existing alumni association and Walter’s Kids.
The other improvement was to come up with long-term goals for the initiative. The long-term goals would guarantee that all the members are aware that the initiative is meant to last. Therefore, the interest of the members would be easily sustained in the long-term. Another revision in the plan is to ensure that all finances are handled in a transparent manner from the onset. The members pointed out that the issue of finances was likely to bring down the foundation as it had done to other similar initiatives.