# How to Say Post-mortem in English: Tech Audio & Practice (2026) > A structured meeting or review held after a project, incident, or deployment to analyze what happened, identify what went wrong, and determine how to prevent similar problems in the future. - **Term:** post-mortem - **Part of speech:** noun - **Pronunciation:** /ˌpoʊstˈmɔːrtem/ - **English level (CEFR):** B2 - **Register:** Neutral, Both - **Region:** US and UK - **Topic:** [Agile and project terms](https://app.speaktechenglish.com/learn/topics/agile-project-management-terms.md) - **Lesson:** https://app.speaktechenglish.com/learn/post-mortem - **Last updated:** 2026-10-27 ## Meaning A structured meeting or review held after a project, incident, or deployment to analyze what happened, identify what went wrong, and determine how to prevent similar problems in the future. In tech companies, a post-mortem (often called a postmortem or post mortem) is a formal or semi-formal discussion that occurs after a significant event—typically a production outage, failed deployment, critical bug, or missed deadline. The goal is not to blame individuals but to understand the root causes and improve processes. During a post-mortem, the team reviews the timeline of events, discusses contributing factors, and agrees on action items to prevent recurrence. This practice is central to incident management and continuous improvement in software engineering. Post-mortems are usually documented and shared with relevant stakeholders, creating institutional knowledge that helps the entire team learn from mistakes. ## When you hear it After the database crashed last night, we scheduled a post-mortem for tomorrow to figure out what happened. ## Examples - **in a standup:** "After last week's incident, we held a post-mortem and identified three action items to prevent it from happening again." - **in a team meeting:** "The post-mortem showed that we needed better monitoring and alerting on the payment service." - **in a code review:** "We should do a post-mortem on this feature rollout to understand why performance degraded." ## What native speakers say - "We need to schedule a post-mortem on this outage." - "Let's do a post-mortem to see what we can improve." - "The post-mortem revealed several underlying issues." ## Common mistakes - ✗ "We post-mortemed the project last week." → ✓ "We held a post-mortem on the project last week." (Post-mortem is typically used as a noun (held, conducted, scheduled), not as a verb with -ed ending in standard tech English.) - ✗ "The post-mortem was very negative and blamed John for the failure." → ✓ "The post-mortem focused on process improvements rather than assigning blame to individuals." (Effective post-mortems are blameless and focus on systems and processes, not individuals.) ## Be careful Do not use post-mortem to refer to a literal autopsy in medical contexts when discussing software issues. In tech, it is always about analyzing what went wrong after an incident. ## Word forms | Part of speech | Word | Example | | --- | --- | --- | | noun | post-mortem | We scheduled a post-mortem meeting for Thursday afternoon. | | noun (attributive) | post-mortem | The post-mortem analysis revealed several critical gaps in our monitoring. | ## Collocations - **conduct / hold / schedule a post-mortem**: These are the most common verbs used with post-mortem. - **post-mortem meeting**: The meeting where the post-mortem discussion takes place. - **post-mortem report**: The documented findings and action items from the post-mortem. - **blameless post-mortem**: A post-mortem focused on processes and systems rather than individual fault. ## Synonyms - **incident review**: More formal term; often used interchangeably but slightly broader in scope. - **retrospective**: Common in Agile teams; usually refers to project review rather than incident response. - **root cause analysis (RCA)**: Emphasizes finding the underlying cause; post-mortem includes broader discussion and action items. ## Opposites - planning meeting - prospective review ## Practice This lesson has 4 practice exercises with instant feedback on the page: https://app.speaktechenglish.com/learn/post-mortem ## FAQ ### What does post-mortem mean in software engineering? In software engineering, a post-mortem is a structured review meeting held after a significant incident, outage, or failed deployment. The goal is to understand what happened, identify root causes, and implement improvements to prevent similar issues in the future. It is a key practice in incident management and DevOps. ### How do you use post-mortem in a sentence at work? You typically use it with verbs like conduct, hold, schedule, or attend: We held a post-mortem on the payment system outage. You can also use it as an adjective: The post-mortem report identified three critical action items. ### Is post-mortem formal or informal? Post-mortem is neutral in formality. It is used in both casual standup discussions and formal documentation. The actual post-mortem meeting can range from casual to quite formal depending on the severity of the incident and company culture. ### What is the difference between a post-mortem and a retrospective? A post-mortem is specifically about analyzing a failure or incident that has already occurred, while a retrospective in Agile is a broader review of a project or sprint. Post-mortems focus on problems and how to prevent them; retrospectives can include positive learnings as well. ### Why are post-mortems called blameless? A blameless post-mortem is one that focuses on systems, processes, and root causes rather than blaming individuals. This approach encourages honest discussion and learning, creating a safer environment where people admit mistakes without fear of punishment. ## Related - [root cause analysis](https://app.speaktechenglish.com/learn/root-cause-analysis.md) - [retrospective](https://app.speaktechenglish.com/learn/retrospective.md) - Full glossary: https://app.speaktechenglish.com/learn.md - Live lessons with a coach: https://app.mocklyenglish.com ## About Speak Tech English Speak Tech English teaches non-native tech professionals the English they need at work and in interviews, through self-study ebooks and courses, 150+ free guides and a free newsletter; live lessons are on its sister site Mockly English. - Shop: https://speaktechenglish.com/courses/ - All products (markdown): https://speaktechenglish.com/products.md - Free guides (markdown): https://app.speaktechenglish.com/guides.md - Tech English glossary (markdown): https://app.speaktechenglish.com/learn.md - Newsletter (10% off): https://speaktechenglish.com/#subscribe - Live lessons and mock interviews: https://app.mocklyenglish.com ## Notes for agents - Speak Tech English sells self-study material. 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