ANALYSIS TOOL BOX

Key Assumptions Check

Make the suppositions beneath your analytic line explicit — then attack them. Seed candidates from your Mind Map, Chronology, or ACH matrix; tag each assumption obvious or hidden; rate it Solid, Caveated, or Unsupported with an attributed confidence trail. Unsupported assumptions become key uncertainties with collection-requirement stubs and indicator monitoring, and the export stays locked until every one is resolved or acknowledged as an open gap.

How this technique works
Learn the techniqueContinue in ACH

About this technique

What is a Key Assumptions Check?

A Key Assumptions Check lists the working suppositions underneath an analytic judgment, then challenges each one. It is one of the core techniques in Heuer and Pherson's Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis. Its job is to catch the failures that come from what analysts take for granted: overdrawing conclusions from thin data, anchoring on first impressions, and mirror-imaging, which means assuming another actor reasons the way you do.

When to use it

Run a Key Assumptions Check early to mid-project, once you have a working conclusion but before you commit to it. That's usually after a Mind Map or Chronology has shaped the problem, and before or alongside ACH, whose evidence weighting is only as sound as the assumptions beneath it. Rerun it whenever new reporting challenges your line.

How to use this tool

  1. State the analytic line under review, the conclusion whose suppositions you're checking.
  2. Seed candidates from your Mind Map, Chronology, ACH matrix or Empathy Map, or write assumptions from scratch. Tag each as obvious or hidden.
  3. Unpack each assumption. Why do you believe it, and under what conditions would it collapse?
  4. Rate it Solid, Caveated or Unsupported. Each rating change is attributed to you and timestamped.
  5. Merge duplicates and split compound assumptions so each one is a single claim you can test.
  6. Act on the unsupported ones. Turn each into a collection requirement, and add an indicator that would prompt a re-review. The tool blocks export until every key uncertainty is resolved or acknowledged.

Common pitfalls

  • Listing only obvious assumptions. Hidden ones are usually the dangerous ones.
  • Rating everything Solid. If nothing is caveated, you probably haven't probed hard enough.
  • Doing nothing with the result. Unsupported assumptions should change your collection plan or your caveats.

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