This presentation describes how to start the exploration of a case/problem/opportunity, using the Assumptions & Questions technique, from IBM Enterprise Design Thinking toolkit. This content was presented to Hortolândia DT Chapter members in November/2019, during the weekly Thursday DT session, created to share knowledge and open space to practice the Enterprise Design Thinking (EDT) framework.

1. EDT Hortolândia
Chapter Stage
Creating assumptions to
understanding a DT case
Renner Modafares Pereira
November 19

2. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
When we are in the middle of the chaos…
MakeReflectObserve

3. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
We need to reflect “what is the chaos"
MakeReflectObserve

4. Reflect can be the
first step to arrange
The Chaos
EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19

5. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
How to “arrange the chaos”?
You can start asking yourself questions like:
• Who are our users? Who are our stakeholders?
• How do we define success today?
• What did we Observe or Make? What’s working and what isn’t?
• What’s our plan? What’s on our roadmap?

6. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
Organizing your
first perception
about the chaos
Using Assumptions & Questions
technique

7. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
Collect assumptions
• Diverge, with each team
member writing one
assumption or question
per sticky note.
• Assumptions could be
encompassed users, context,
stakeholder expectations, or
technological capabilities.
• Questions are all unanswered
doubts about the work.

8. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
Only part of the problem is
defined.
There is no complete mastery
over the problem area, and
current knowledge is inadequate
The results are unpredictable,
and there is a need for
experimentation, improvisation
and constant adaptation.
The problem is easily definable.
There is already mastery over
the problem, and there are
formulas, best practices for
solving it.
The context is stable, and the
results are predictable, requiring
no validation of best practices for
best results.
Complex Complicated

9. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
Set up the activity
• Draw a two-by-two
grid with High-risk on
the top, Low-risk on
the bottom, Certain
on the left, and
Uncertain on the
right.

10. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
Identify high-risk uncertainties
• As a group, rank Assumptions
and Questions based on how
certain or uncertain the group
is about either the assumption
being true, or the answer to
the question. Then rank your
assumptions and questions
based on their priority.
• How critical is it to answer each
Question or validate each Assumption?
How bad will it be if you get it wrong?

11. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
Build an action plan
• Pull high-risk and uncertain
items from the upper-right
quadrant into a new space.
• For each item, diverge on many
different ways to validate or invalidate
these assumptions and questions.
• Is there someone you can talk to
directly to get an answer? Could you
validate an assumption through direct
observation? Could you build a
prototype to test a hypothesis?

12. EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19
When we test and
validate our premises,
we have a hypothesis
A hypothesis is a trigger for further research

13. “To be a
scientist you
need to be
ready to give
up the certainty
and the truth”
Karl Popper
EDT Hortolândia Chapter Stage November 19

14. Thank you!