Assumptions

Context leaders face many things that are out of their control and/or not known at the time. They identify their working assumptions about the external world, the internal organization, and the possible impacts of their actions. They capture these to improve dialog for decisions and to clarify the uncertainty in the strategy. Making the uncertainty visible in this way refines their beliefs into specific positions (or educated guesses) on how some unknowns will play out. Assumptions can then be reviewed periodically, to check if new information or learnings would force them to reconsider.

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Example Syntax:

"For <this thing that is uncertain>, we will assume that <this is true>, and will revisit this assumption if we see <this happen> by <this date>."

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For more:

• "Assumption Mapping", David Bland (2020).

• "Five Simple Questions to Drive Validated Learning", John Cutler (2016).