By Amanda King, Lead Service Designer at Nimble Approach with over 20 years of experience designing user-centred technology.
When developing a new product or service, one of the greatest challenges teams face is uncertainty.
- Which features will users care about most?
- Is there even a real need for what we’re building?
- Will our solution work at scale?
Questions like these point to the inherent risk in innovation – and they also underscore the value of identifying risky assumptions early in the process. Setting us on the right path to building better products and services that truly deliver value and drive growth.
In this blog, we’ll explore what risky assumptions are, why they matter, and how we work with clients to use a structured approach to define, prioritise, and test these assumptions to reduce risk and build better services.
What Are Risky Assumptions?
A risky assumption is a belief or expectation we have about our product, service, or users that, if wrong, could lead to failure.
These assumptions can exist at any stage of a project – from the actual problem we think we’re trying to solve, to the way a user interacts with a prototype.
Risky assumptions are not just unknowns – they are unknowns that have the potential to cause significant damage if left unchecked. That makes identifying and validating them early a vital activity, especially when time and resources are limited.
Examples of risky assumptions could include:
- “Schools value receiving timely and detailed updates about inspection outcomes”
- “Case workers will be able to consistently implement improvements across schools without needing additional resources or local context.”
The Purpose of Identifying Risky Assumptions
The primary purpose of identifying risky assumptions is to prioritise and validate the most risky elements of a product or service before significant time or money is invested. This helps teams:
- Focus efforts on the most uncertain and potentially damaging parts of the idea
- Prevent wasted investment in flawed concepts
- Create a clear, research-driven roadmap for iteration and development
By examining our assumptions early, we can shift the mindset from “build it and see” to “learn first, build better.”
Why Risky Assumptions Are Important
Testing assumptions instead of full product ideas, helps businesses and organisations reduce time and cost while rapidly uncovering real user needs. This focused approach accelerates the path to building better products that truly deliver value and drive growth.
When working on something new – especially in large, complex public sector services like those we design for our public sector clients, it can be hard to know where to begin. Risky assumptions help us to:
1. Make Progress in a Big, Uncertain Problem Space
Product teams often face high levels of ambiguity at the start of a new initiative. There are many unknowns, and it’s unclear where to start. Risky assumptions allow us to narrow down the problem space by identifying the most uncertain areas that matter most.
For example, if we’re building a service to help young people find apprenticeships, a risky assumption might be that users understand what apprenticeships are. If this assumption proves wrong, we may need to rethink not only our messaging but also the overall design of the service.
2. Inform Research and Identify Risks
By writing down our assumptions, we create focused questions for user research. This helps us to explore specific topics that directly relate to our riskiest beliefs.
This approach allows us to plan research with intent, targeting areas that carry the most potential risk. It also helps uncover related risks we may not have initially considered.
3. Generate Hypotheses to Test and Iterate
Each risky assumption becomes the basis for a testable hypothesis. These hypotheses help us validate or invalidate assumptions quickly – using prototypes, user interviews, or other rapid testing methods.
Rather than jumping straight into full development, we test the parts of our service most likely to fail and iterate based on feedback. This process ensures we’re building the right thing – not just building the thing right.
Defining Risky Assumptions at DfE
In our work at the Department for Education, we’ve helped develop a systematic process to identify, evaluate, and prioritise risky assumptions in our projects. Learn more about our Agile Maturity Assessment service.
Here’s how we approach it:
Step 1: Capture Assumptions
We begin by individually capturing all the assumptions we’re currently making. These come from various sources, including:
- Previous research
- Experience from subject matter experts (SMEs)
- Stakeholder discussions
- Service and journey mapping sessions
At this stage, the goal is to record all assumptions, no matter how obvious or minor they might seem. Assumptions that feel certain or safe are often the most risky when overlooked.
Step 2: Map Assumptions to Service Phases
In parallel, we map each assumption against the relevant phase(s) of the service. Some assumptions may span multiple phases – from awareness and discovery to usage and support.
This helps us see where in the user journey each risk might occur and focus our research efforts accordingly.
Step 3: Evaluate Using Risk Criteria
Next, we evaluate each assumption against four criteria:
- Consequence if we’re wrong – What happens if this assumption is incorrect?
- Can we mitigate the risk – Is there a way to reduce the impact if we’re wrong?
- Impact if we’re wrong – How severe is the effect of being wrong?
- Confidence we know the answer – How confident are we that this assumption is true?
Step 4: Score and Rank
Each assumption is given a risk score, based on:
- Impact if we’re wrong
- Confidence we know the answer
We then discuss the scores as a team, combining our diverse view points to reach an agreement. This collaborative scoring ensures alignment and surfaces different interpretations of risk.
The result is a ranked list of assumptions from highest to lowest risk. This list becomes our research and prototyping roadmap.
This structured evaluation helps us turn vague concerns into tangible, prioritised risks.
Turning Assumptions Into Hypotheses
Once we’ve identified and prioritised our riskiest assumptions, we translate each one into a hypothesis. For example:
- Risky assumption: Users know they are eligible for this service.
- Hypothesis: We believe that clearly presenting eligibility criteria on the homepage will help users understand whether they qualify for the service. We can validate this by speaking with [XYZ group].
Research questions are generated from each hypotheses , such as:
- What do users currently know about eligibility?
- Where do they expect to find this information?
- Do they understand the language we’re using?
These questions inform our research plan, focusing on areas that can confirm or challenge the hypothesis.
We use rapid prototyping and testing to validate these hypotheses – often starting with low-fidelity designs, such as paper sketches or clickable wireframes. The goal is to get quick, directional feedback that helps us improve before investing more time or effort.
Iterating as We Learn
As we conduct research and gather new insights, our understanding of risk evolves. That’s why we treat our list of risky assumptions as a living document.
We revisit and update assumptions based on what we learn:
- Validated assumptions may be removed from the list
- New risks may emerge and be added
- Scores may be updated as confidence increases
This iterative approach ensures our team is always focused on what matters most at each stage of development.
Why This Approach Works
By putting risky assumptions at the centre of our process, we:
- Stay user-centred: Every hypothesis is tested with real users, not just internal opinions
- Avoid overconfidence: We acknowledge what we don’t know and plan accordingly
- Reduce waste: We avoid building features or services that are based on unvalidated beliefs
- Adapt quickly: Our process is flexible and evolves with new information
This approach enables smarter, leaner, and more effective product development – not just in government, but in any organisation trying to deliver better services under uncertainty.
5 Questions to Ask Before Making Risky Assumptions
1. What am I taking for granted as true?
Helps surface beliefs you haven’t questioned, especially around users, needs, or outcomes. Try putting yourself in your users’ shoes, what do they need to do?
2. What do I believe will happen, and why?
Ask yourself what outcome you expect, and what makes you think that will happen.
3. What would surprise me if it didn’t happen?
Reveals expectations that feel ‘obvious’ but are actually assumptions.
4. What am I basing this decision or idea on?
Encourages reflection on whether you’re using data, intuition, or past experience and whether it applies here.
5. What have I not yet tested or proven?
Highlights the difference between what you know and what you’re just assuming.
My Final Thoughts
Every product or service begins with assumptions. Some are minor, but others can determine the success or failure of our work. By identifying and prioritising risky assumptions early, we give our teams the best chance to build something that truly works – for users, stakeholders, organisations, and businesses.
At DfE, this approach helps us focus on what matters, learn quickly, and deliver services that meet real needs. It’s not about eliminating risk – it’s about understanding it, managing it, and using it to guide better decisions.
Authors Bio
Amanda King is Lead Service Designer at Nimble Approach. She has over 20 years of experience designing usable services and tech for a range of businesses and organisations across public and private sectors, including healthcare, higher education, not-for-profit, mobile and telecommunications, and manufacturing. Amanda is passionate about ensuring the systems and tools we develop to deliver our services are usable, accessible and improve peoples’ lives.
