What has to be true: identify and map your assumptions
Every idea is a hypothesis. Write the hypotheses down.
Behind every product plan sits a stack of things you are assuming are true. The target customer is this person. Their problem is this. They will pay this much. We can build it in this time. The channel will reach them. Most of these are never said out loud, which is how a team can work for a year on a plan that depended on something nobody checked.
The format that makes them visible is We believe that. WBT the target customer for our solution is small-firm payroll specialists. WBT their biggest problem is monthly re-keying. WBT they will pay 10 to 20% of the time they save. Say it, and it becomes testable.
Three kinds
Write three of each. If you only have desirability assumptions, you are not thinking about the business yet. If you only have feasibility ones, you are an engineering team looking for a customer.
- Desirability: do customers want it? Value and usability risk live here.
- Feasibility: can we build and deliver it? Time, skills, technology, partners.
- Viability: does it work as a business? Price, cost, legal, channel.
Map them: importance against evidence
Two axes. How important is this assumption to the whole idea? If it is false, does the idea die? And how much evidence do you have that it is true? Not confidence. Evidence. Interviews, data, a working prototype, a paying customer.
Top left is important and no evidence. That is what you test. Bottom right is unimportant and well evidenced. Ignore it. Top right, important and strong evidence, move to delivery. Bottom left, park it.
Be strict about what counts as evidence. A market report counts a little. Positive opinions inside the team count for nothing. Five interviews in which the customer described paying for a workaround count a lot.
The payroll app's assumption map
Desirability: WBT Polish SMEs find payroll time-consuming and error-prone; WBT the payroll specialist, not the owner, drives the tool choice. Feasibility: WBT we can integrate with the two most common accounting systems in three months. Viability: WBT firms will pay per employee per month; WBT accountants will refer us.
On the map, the referral assumption sat top left. Important, because the channel plan depended on it, and no evidence at all. So that was the first test, not the integration.
Nine assumptions, mapped
Write them as We believe that. Then score importance and evidence honestly. The worksheet lists the ones that land in test it.
| Type (desirability, feasibility, viability) | We believe that... | Importance (high or low) | Evidence (none, some, strong) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||
| 2 | ||||
| 3 | ||||
| 4 | ||||
| 5 | ||||
| 6 | ||||
| 7 | ||||
| 8 | ||||
| 9 |
Tick only what is true. Nobody is grading this. The next module assumes it.