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Guides · Reviews and post-mortems

Post-mortem and lessons learned template

A post-mortem looks back at a project, launch or incident to agree on what happened, why, and what changes now. The useful ones are blameless, built on a timeline of facts, and end with a short list of owned actions with dates.

Use it when
Incident reviews, project post-mortems, retros, case studies.
Typical length
10 to 12.
Format
Sent as a written record; presented to decide on action items.

The post-mortem structure, slide by slide

Borrowed from the Apollo 13 incident review structure. Each beat is one slide, three at most.

  1. 01CoverIncident name, detection time, severity, status, and the words "blameless review".
  2. 02SummaryWhat happened, impact, root cause, resolution: four lines an executive can read in thirty seconds.
  3. 03ImpactLead with the outcome that matters most, then what it cost, in one hero number and a quiet row.
  4. 04TimelineEvery event with a timestamp, scrubbable, color-coded by phase.
  5. 05DetectionTime to detect, diagnose and mitigate, plus every earlier signal you missed.
  6. 06ResponseWhat the team did to stop the bleeding, in the order it happened.
  7. 07Key mitigationThe one fix that saved you, shown working against its limit.
  8. 08Root causeFive whys, from the symptom to the decision that made it possible.
  9. 09RetroWhat went well, what went wrong, and where you got lucky, three items each.
  10. 10Action itemsEvery fix with one owner and a type: prevent, detect, mitigate, process, learn.
  11. 11Follow-upsStatus, then dated follow-ups, so the review ends on what happens next.

What good reviews and post-mortems do

  • Blameless: systems and decisions, not people.
  • Summary and impact first, then a timeline logged to the minute.
  • Separate detection, response, and root cause; ask why five times.
  • Name what went well, what went wrong, and where you got lucky.
  • Every action item has an owner and a date.

Where they usually fail

  • Blaming a person
  • A root cause that stops at the first why
  • Action items with no owner

More post-mortem examples

2004 Growth post-mortem

Mean Girls

Three launches, one evangelist, zero repeats.

Legend
Original craft
Unfair

The story→11 slides

2000 Competitive response

Blockbuster

They passed on Netflix for $50M. This is the deck they needed next.

Legend
Original craft
Unfair

The story→11 slides

Post-mortem and lessons learned template: questions

What should a post-mortem include?

A summary of the impact, a timeline of what happened, the causes, what went well, what did not, and the actions that will prevent a repeat, each with an owner and a date.

What is a blameless post-mortem?

One that treats mistakes as the product of systems and pressures rather than individual failings, so people share what really happened and the fixes target the cause.

What is the difference between a post-mortem and a retrospective?

A retrospective is a regular check-in on how a team works. A post-mortem follows one event, usually something that went wrong or a project that ended.

Make yours with this structure

Type your site and we'll write the prompt for your deck, in your brand, built on the Apollo 13 incident review structure.