Assumptions & Questions

Everyone goes into a project with thoughts about what is really going on, or questions about what the real issues are. Assumptions & Questions are a great way to get your team or stakeholders to check their biases and identify areas that need deeper research.

Design Phase: Investigate
Facilitator: 1 
Activity Group: 4-8 
Time: 30 Min 
Materials: Sticky notes and markers, Whiteboard Virtual Whiteboard

Icon representing Assumptions method within Design Thinking

Before the Activity

Assemble the Team

  1. Have a clearly defined design team or stakeholder group that you’ll be working through the project with
  2. Make sure everyone is clear on the project scope and challenge.

Set up a whiteboard

  1. Designate two colors of sticky notes: one for Assumptions and one for Questions.
  2. Create a section of the board with a 4 quadrant chart, the X axis ranging from Certain to Uncertain and the Y axis ranging from Low Impact to High Impact.

During the Activity

Set Context and Goals

  1. Gather the group and provide a brief recap of the project scope and challenge.
  2. Let the group know which color sticky note is for Assumptions and which one is for Questions.

Begin Exercise 

  1. Instruct participants to write down as many of their Assumptions and Questions as they can in an open space on the whiteboard. This can usually be accomplished in 10 minutes.
  2. Once everyone has posted their thoughts, move on to the next step.

Identify Themes
Themes can contain a mix of Assumptions and Questions, as long as they share a common thread.

  1. As groups of like ideas emerge, give titles to the clusters that are short, descriptive phrases of the themes.

Once all Assumptions and Questions have been themed, it’s time to identify where the team’s research efforts should be focused. Take approximately 5 minutes with the group to silently place the theme titles in the chart you prepared before the workshop. Base the theme placement on how certain the group is that the assumption or question is a known and how much of an impact it will have on the success of the project. With all themes charted, evaluate and discuss the placements as a group. There is no exact science here, we’re searching for the best placement based on our knowledge.

After the Activity

Evaluate the chart to determine how the team should proceed with design research. Any themes in the Low Impact/Certain quadrant can be left alone since the answer is clear and it won’t jeopardize the project. The themes in High Impact/Certain and Low Impact/Uncertain should get some attention to confirm or debunk the team’s assumptions or questions, but this is not where the bulk of the research should take place. The core of the team’s efforts should be placed in finding answers for the themes in the High Impact/Uncertain quadrant due to the ambiguous nature of the themes and their potential to make or break the project. Use this information to draft a research plan for the engagement and share the chart and plan with the team.