Explore the challenge free worksheet
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Surface risky assumptions before time and money get committed
Have you ever been involved in a piece of work where everyone seemed ready to get going, only for it to become clear later that the team had been working from a pile of unchecked assumptions?
It happens all the time.
An idea takes shape in a meeting. People get behind it. Plans are made. Time and budget get committed. But nobody has properly stopped to ask things like:
Is this a real problem for people?
Will people actually use this?
Are we designing for people like us, rather than the people who need the service?
Are we assuming the wrong channel, format or solution?
What do we think we know that we have not yet tested?
This worksheet is designed to help teams slow down just enough to have that conversation early.
Spending 40 minutes with the right people in the room can make a huge difference. It can help you spot risky assumptions, avoid charging ahead too quickly, and identify what you need to learn before moving forward.
What this worksheet helps teams do
This tool helps teams to:
share their collective knowledge
make assumptions visible
talk openly about risk and uncertainty
identify the assumptions that matter most
create a prioritised list of things they need to learn next.
Sometimes that next step is a conversation with users. Sometimes it is a small piece of research. Sometimes it is enough for the team to realise they are not ready to proceed yet.
That is useful too.
Who is it for?
This worksheet is best used by a team.
It works well in project kick-offs, team meetings and facilitated workshops where you want to gather multiple perspectives before deciding what to do next. The more varied the group, the better. Different people will bring different knowledge, different blind spots and different questions.
It is especially useful for teams planning a new piece of work or revisiting a challenge that feels unclear, rushed or full of hidden assumptions.
How to use it
Bring together a group of people with some knowledge of the challenge or a stake in the work.
Use the worksheet to capture assumptions about the problem, the people affected, and the likely success of your proposed direction. Then talk through which assumptions feel most risky if they turn out not to be true.
The real value is not just in the completed worksheet. It is in the conversation it creates.
Used well, this tool can help a team move from “we think we know” to “here is what we need to find out”.
How it works alongside Frame the challenge
This worksheet pairs well with Frame the challenge worksheet (coming soon!).
Explore the challenge helps a team surface risky assumptions, identify gaps in their understanding and decide what they need to learn before moving forward.
Frame the challenge helps a team get clear on the problem, align around purpose and define success.
Used together, they can help a team both define the challenge well and avoid charging ahead based on guesswork.
Tried and tested in practice
We use this worksheet regularly in both our training and client work – including Service Design in Practice, where teams have been using it or versions of it since 2018, and in our work with Audit Wales, where it helped a team rethink internal communications and redesign their intranet in a more user-centred way.
Request the worksheet
Get the worksheet sent to your inbox by completing this short form.
It’s available as a PDF you can use digitally or print for team discussion in meetings and workshops. This worksheet is shared under a Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 4.0 so you can freely use it in your own work. All we ask is that you say where you got it from. If you use it and find a way to improve it, we’d love to hear about it.
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