Assumption impact quadrant matrix

❓What is it

• A visualisation of the biggest assumptions and unknowns captured at various points through Ideation and Discovery phases.
• Captures the most important assumptions and unknowns and creates a relative priority of importance to address
• The visual centric representation accelerates understanding and frames more action oriented conversations with stakeholders and team members, unlike a more traditional approach of a RAID log.
• The quadrant matrix should be a living document throughout the Discovery and Validation phase, helping the team to collaboratively decide on the steps to take to de-risk the most impactful assumptions or unknowns in the form of hypotheses and experiments
• By addressing the most riskiest and impactful assumptions at the start, confidence of a valuable outcome can be rapidly increased

👥Who

• Product Manager or Delivery Manager where no product manager is available

🛠 Running the technique

• If a list does not already exist, use a workshop of team members and stakeholders to brainstorm any key assumptions and unknowns associated to the problem space
• Try and make the assumption clear and explicit in the form of a statement
• As a group respectfully challenge each of the assumptions to ensure a level of efficacy  
• Assess how impactful each item is to achieving a valuable outcome, e.g. realising the value proposition
• As a core team use relative weighting to order each of the documented assumptions, across each of the axes
• This creates a natural priority to then address in defining an hypothesis and designing experiments to de-risk this assumption during the validation phase