The Assumptions Management during Project Execution.

A key activity for timely achievement of the project's key milestones is the proper assumptions management. For instance, proper management of certain assumptions would allow at early project stage to initiate a preliminary layout plan or some preliminary flow chart of a key process or start-up the acquisition of some key long-lead items.
The assumptions management includes the promotion of the appropriate environment for issuing the assumptions and the implementation of a monitoring system to control the assumptions adopted.

In order to provide the project with the appropriate environment for issuing assumptions, it is recommended:

• Clearly identify the client's real needs and requirements.
• Implement the concurrent work team aligned with the client's real needs and requirements.
• Promote the use of reference designs that serve as a basis (prototype), if applicable.
• Identify key assumptions.
• Be aligned with the project reviewer regarding identified assumptions and avoid misunderstandings.
• Implement early contact with suppliers.
• Promote the preference for simple design that provides greater added value.

In order to monitor and control the assumptions, it should be considered the implementation of some of the existing methods to handle assumptions. Among these methods, there is the Assumption-Based Planning ("ABP"), which tries to make project planning aware and sensitive about the uncertainties underlying the assumptions of already developed planning and to be alert for timely decision making.

For an already established planning, assumption-based planning identifies five steps. These steps are:

1. Identification in the planning of the relevant explicit and implicit assumptions.
2. Identification of the assumptions vulnerabilities in the planning horizon of the project.
3. Issuance of Warning Signs (Signpost) of possible breach of an assumption and that serve to monitor the most vulnerable assumptions. In the case of an alert signal, this request requires corrective action.
4. Implementation of Shoring Actions (Shaping Actions) for vulnerable assumptions and to control their vulnerability as much as possible.
5. Implementation of the Hedging Actions to prepare the project for the possibility of a vulnerable assumption failing, despite efforts to shore it up. The Hedging Actions are triggered once the failure of an assumption or a failure warning signal of an assumption is detected.

Reference:
Assumption-Based Planning: A tool for Reducing Avoidable Surprises, James A. Dewar, Cambridge University Press, RAND 2002.