Be Careful! Assumptions Are The Mother of Many Problems!
Dealing with assumptions to avoid waste and maximize value
How often do you get surprised by one of the following?
Customers don’t understand your solution, even though the team did their best
Leads don’t convert to customers, even though your value proposition is clear
Tech aspects get more complicated, even though your team is highly skilled
Current users don’t engage with your new shiny feature, even though you’re addressing a problem they have
I got surprised more often than I’d like to. Sadly, most of the surprises came from unchecked assumptions. I either assumed that customers wanted something or would understand how to use it, or we had the skills for it, or business people would support the team.
The problem happens when you make assumptions and don’t test them.
The more assumptions you make and don’t check, the more unpleasant surprises you will have.
What Can You Do Today for a Better Tomorrow?
Leaving assumptions unchecked is the right way to create waste. Yet, you can deal with it with a straightforward approach. Let me share it with you.
1 - Recognize you have blind spots
It’s fundamental to accept you don’t know everything. Worse than that, you don’t know what you don’t know.
At the beginning of any initiative. Your knowledge is close to zero, and the risk is as high as possible. Lesson number one, make decisions to uncover the unknowns and minimize risk.
2 - Identify Assumptions
We all have assumptions, and most of them are unconscious. Identifying them and acting on the most important ones is essential.
I use two approaches:
Working backward: Imagine you put your solution live, and everything was a disaster. Ask yourself, what went wrong? These are your assumptions.
Story Mapping: Create the user journey, and for each step, ask yourself, “What am I assuming at this stage?”
Assumptions can be categorized into different types. Try identifying items for each of the following:
Desirability: Do customers want it?
Usability: Can customers use it?
Feasibility: Can you build it?
Viability: Is it viable from the business side?
Ethically: Should you do it?
3 - Prioritize
Don’t treat all assumptions the same. Focus on the ones you lack evidence of and are business-critical.
If you’ve been reading my posts, you know I’m pragmatic. Use a matrix 2x2, and focus on the top right quadrant.
4 - Test
Put your energy into checking the prioritized assumptions. Create experiments that help you understand whether your assumption is true or false.
Essential tip: Strive to prove yourself wrong. Cultivating a falsification mindset will help you avoid confirmation bias.
5 - Decide
Based on the results of your experiments, decide whether it is worth pursuing your initiative.
Keep in mind that 9 out of 10 ideas will fail. The sooner you drop the bad ones, the quicker you find the good ones.
A Question for You
What are you assuming you know without checking it?
Worth Reading
Note: Recently, I released a crash course about Product Discovery. You may be interested in knowing what successful companies do to create value sooner.
David Bland and Teresa Torres both have a lot of content regarding types of assumptions and ways to test them. It would be good to include "testing business ideas" and "continuous product discovery as other worthy reads