Murder Board Your Project Plans

The "Murder Board" Approach to Project Planning

When starting a new project at Palantir, teams followed a structured process to pressure-test ideas before committing resources. This approach ensured that only the strongest plans moved forward and helped identify potential weaknesses early.

The process involves creating a concise project plan and deliberately exposing it to critical scrutiny from uninvolved colleagues. This creates a forcing function that strengthens the plan and builds conviction around the approach.

How the Murder Board works:

• Write a concise two-page plan for the project that includes:

  • The vision for what you're building
  • Specific goals and success metrics
  • Tactical execution plan for the next three months
  • Guiding principles that will inform decision-making

• Invite 3-4 smart colleagues who:

  • Know nothing about the project
  • Have no stake in its success
  • Are willing to be brutally honest

• Their explicit job is to "tear apart your plan" - finding weaknesses, inconsistencies, and potential failure modes

• The principles section is particularly important:

  • Avoid generic principles everyone agrees with (e.g., "move fast")
  • Choose principles that are genuinely controversial
  • Good principles should make some people disagree or question your approach
  • They should create clear decision boundaries that eliminate certain options

Benefits of this approach:

• Forces clarity of thought before execution begins
• Identifies blind spots and weaknesses early
• Tests whether your principles actually provide meaningful guidance
• Creates stronger conviction in the approach after surviving scrutiny
• Builds a shared understanding of what success looks like
• Prevents wasting resources on poorly conceived initiatives

This approach exemplifies Palantir's culture of rigorous thinking and willingness to challenge assumptions - traits that contributed to their success in building complex products and producing successful founders.