Core tool

Support Structure Pre-Mortem

spot the creaks before they become cracks

what it is

Imagine the support structure has started to creak

A pre-mortem starts in the future. Imagine it is 18 months from now: the work still matters, but the ways you support one another are quietly failing. Then work backwards to find what went wrong, the early signs you would have noticed, and one small thing you can do now.

It is 18 months from now. Our work is still important, but our ways of working are creaking…

look across five areas

Where would the first crack appear?

Roles & decision-making

Where might ownership blur, decisions become stuck, or too much responsibility sit with too few people?

Reflection & supervision

Where could learning, support or thinking time disappear as delivery pressure grows?

Communication & feedback

Where might useful information stop travelling, difficult things go unsaid or feedback arrive too late?

Peer support

Where could people become isolated, key-person dependency grow or mutual help become harder to ask for?

Boundaries

Where might goodwill become overwork, responsibility spill beyond roles or the organisation rely on sacrifice to keep going?

the exercise

Failure → early sign → small protection

Choose an area

Start with one of the five support structures, or divide them between small groups.

Assume it has gone wrong

Describe what has failed 18 months from now. Be specific enough that people recognise the situation.

Work backwards

What would you have noticed three, six or twelve months earlier if you had been paying attention?

Choose one protective move

Name one small change you can make in the next 3–6 months that would reduce the risk or help you notice it sooner.

Keep the signal visible

Decide who will notice, where you will revisit it and what would make you act rather than simply note the warning.

questions to use

Keep the conversation concrete

What might have gone wrong?

What would the earliest visible sign have been?

Who would notice first — and would they feel able to say so?

What is one small step we can take in the next 3–6 months?

resilience

Why this matters

Being Supported is not about individual toughness. It is about building ways of working that do not depend on people absorbing pressure indefinitely. The pre-mortem makes quiet organisational fragility discussable before it becomes a crisis.

If something were quietly going wrong in how we support each other, where would the first sign show up — and would anyone say so?