Assumption Collecting
What is an Assumption Collecting workshop?
This tactic helps you uncover the assumptions you and your team may have about a project.
Declaring what you think to be true at the start of the project to help you identify risks. Having everyone’s assumptions visible early removes any surprises later on.
Try running Problem Statement beforehand to give you a clear problem to start unpacking your assumptions from. Afterwards, prioritise your riskiest assumptions with Assumption Map.
Assumption Collecting Miro Template
How to run an Assumption Collecting workshop
1. Ensure the workshop includes the project’s key stakeholders. Try Stakeholder Map beforehand to help you invite the right people.
2. Get everyone to answer the following questions on sticky notes and Theme Sort them as they are completed. If needed, rewrite the questions to make them relevant to your project.
Business assumptions
- I believe my customers have a need to ...
- These needs can be solved with ...
- My initial customers are (or will be) ...
- The #1 value a customer wants to get out of my service is ...
- The customer can also get these additional benefits ...
- I will acquire the majority of my customers through ...
- I will make money by ...
- My primary competition in the market is ...
- We will beat them due to ...
- My biggest product risk is ...
- We will solve this through ...
- What other assumptions do we have that, if proven false, will cause our business/project to fail?
User assumptions
- Who is the user?
- Where does our product fit in her work or life?
- What problem does our product solve?
- When and how is our product used?
- What features are important?
Origin: Giff Constable
Not sure if this is the right approach for your team at the moment? Try a different tactic for understanding the problems and challenges you face. Or if you’re happy that you know what the next big challenge is for your team, try a framing tactic to help you articulate your problem, ready for solving.
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Assumption Collecting is one of 54 workshop recipe cards inside the Workshop Tactics card deck.
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