Assumption Mapping Workshop

When kicking off a new idea, one of the first things to do is to reduce the innovation risk.

This workshop should be run with the core team and any subject matter experts who know about the idea. The aim is to identify success factors that might become showstoppers and run experiments to improve our confidence, and ultimately, persevere, pivot, or pause work on the idea.

The template has 8 steps:

1. Brainstorm factors that are desirability, viability, and feasibility.

2. Consider the entire business model on a Lean Canvas.

3. Consider the change required for your customers or users to move from their existing solution to your new solution.

4. Collaborate with computers using Miro Assist to identify new questions your team might not have considered in steps 1-3.

5. Facilitate a conversation to converge on the key assumptions generated in exercises 1-4.

6. Craft your success equation from the key factors above.

7. Move key assumptions onto the map by importance and evidence.

8. Create experiment cards and begin to gather your own data to reduce the innovation risk and improve confidence.

Ultimately, consider if the idea is worth pursing. As Alberto Savoia wrote The Law Of Market Failure is: Most new products will fail in the market, even if they are competently executed. Using this workshop you can reduce wasing time, resources on the wrong ideas, making more time for the right ones.