What are project assumptions examples

I’m not gonna lie to you: This article was hard to write because it’s such a dry topic. But still, I believe you should be aware of the role assumptions have in projects. And understanding their impact will help you avoid some common project risks.

So let’s look at what project assumptions are and why they deserve your attention.

What are project assumptions?

Project assumptions are certain things we consider to be true which impact the way we plan or manage a project (see PMI definition). We consider those factors to be true in order to give us a basis for planning. If we couldn’t be sure about anything, we could not make any predictions about the duration and cost of our project.

Assumptions may concern various areas, including our own role and responsibilities, our client’s responsibilities, legal regulations, the client’s needs as well as future events that we expect to take place.

Hell, this was a lot of abstract babbling.

Let’s make things clear with a few practical examples:

Practical examples of project assumptions

You’ll best understand the concept of assumptions by these examples:

• Assumptions about skills: You are discussing an IT system replacement project with a potential client. The client’s CIO tells you they have a “very experienced” IT team who has done “hundreds of migrations”. You therefore agree with the client that they are going to perform the data migration themselves. The client is happy that they can save cost.
• Scheduling assumptions: Your project team members are also involved in another project. Therefore you’ve planned key activities (e.g. business trips) so that they don’t collide with the other project. For your planning and resource allocation you assume that the other project will follow its original schedule.
• Cost assumptions: For a construction project you are purchasing 5 tons of cement in May, and you’re going to buy the same quantity again in October. You assume that the cement price is going to remain stable over the next months.
• Assumptions about the legal environment: To make your client an attractive offer, you are planning to hire foreign temporary workers from India to work at the client’s office for a couple of months. According to current labor and immigration laws this is possible. You assume that the legal rules will remain the same over the course of this 24-month project, and this is reflected in your project plan and budget which are based on the lower labor cost.

Why project assumptions are ticking time bombs

Going through the examples, you probably noticed the issue with assumptions: If they turn out to be wrong or if the environment changes, your project can get into serious trouble.

Take the above example of hiring foreign workers:

• You assumed that (cheaper) external staff are going to perform the work. Hence, your cost estimations are much lower than in a scenario involving domestic workers. If the government now decides to ban foreign temporary workers, you have a big problem.
• You’ll have to deliver to the client, but you’ll have to use (more expensive) domestic staff which make 3-5x more than workers from India. In the end, you’ll make a loss on the project. If you are a big company this won’t hurt you much. But if you are a small contractor, even one such project can end your business.

Exploding cost is just one of the consequences of basing work on invalid assumptions. In other cases the project scope may explode (this is what’s called scope creep) or the project may run into a severe delay.

Read my tips on how you can avoid project delays

Spot assumptions before they cause trouble

Takeaway from this article: Be aware of assumptions and the problems they can cause in projects. Always challenge assumptions made by others, and be conscious about the assumptions you make yourself (this is even harder). It takes some skill and practice to notice when people make assumptions, but asking for evidence for an idea or statement is always a good starting point to uncover potential assumptions.

Finally, I want to point you to one technique that is helpful for identifying assumptions. It is to create an assumptions list together with your project team — basically a brainstorming session with the people involved.

Project Assumption is a factor in planning process that is considered to be true, real or certain often without any proof or demonstration.

It simply means that some things are supposed to be true. Human beings are presumptuous and work on suppositions. Sometimes these suppositions come out to be true while at other times they prove to be false. Hence, all assumptions should be carefully made and analyzed.

Let us understand how assumptions are used in project management with the help of an example.

Assumptions in Project Management: Definition and Examples

Project Assumptions are events or circumstances that are expected to occur during life-cycle of a project. They are considered to be true, real or certain without requiring any proof or demonstration.

You can also look at Max Wideman’s Glossary for the definition of Project Assumptions.

Assumptions in project management are like an educated guess. They can be derived from prior experiences and lessons learned from previous endeavors.

A large part of the plan is based on the assumptions. Reasonable assumptions can help in making a good plan whereas poor assumptions can derail the project.

Project Assumption Example

Let’s understand project assumptions by looking at an example.

Here is a situation – Project team needs approval of design document from the customer. The project cannot move ahead without this approval.

In order to plan, the project team might assume that approval will happen 2 weeks after the design document is submitted.

There is no surety if the customer will give approval within 2 weeks. Only time will tell if the above assumption comes out to be true. However, project plan is prepared based on such type of assumptions.

Project team must do their due diligence and complete analysis before documenting assumptions. They should talk to different stakeholders to verify their assumptions.

Key Points of Project Assumptions

Here are a few key points about project assumptions:

1. Assumptions are believed to be true.
2. They are stated without any empirical evidence.
3. They are derived from either through personal experience or from organizational historical data.
4. All assumptions are potential risks. A poor assumption can be detrimental for the project. Assumption Analysis is one of the important techniques for Risk Identification.
5. They should be well documented and well communicated. Poor communication of assumptions can, sometimes, lead to project failure.
6. A separate Assumptions Log should be made for documenting assumptions.
7. Bigger assumptions must be validated with important project stakeholders.

Difference between Project Assumptions and Constraints

A project constraint is any factor that hinders or restricts the options of the project team.

Many project managers are confused about the difference between assumptions and constraints.  They are simple English words and there is nothing confusing about them.

Constraints are different from assumptions because they limit the choices of a project team.

Let’s us revisit the previous example to distinguish between these two terms

The situation was – Project team needs approval of design document from the customer. The project cannot move ahead without this approval.

The situation itself is a constraint because the project team is cannot do the future work without getting an approval from the customer.

So, the same situation can be treated as a constraint if it is reworded.

You can read my other article on constraints in project management to learn more about them.

Difference between Project Assumptions and Dependencies

A project dependency can defined as an association between two activities, in which one activity requires input from the other.

Just like the assumptions and constraints, project dependency too is a simple English word. If you can understand its English meaning, you will be able to understand the difference between assumptions and dependencies.

Dependencies are different from assumptions because they are between two activities.

Let’s us revisit the previous example to distinguish between these two terms

The situation was – Project team needs approval of design document from the customer. The project cannot move ahead without this approval.

Here, the future activities of project are dependent on a customer activity viz. Design approval.

Again, the same situation can be treated as a dependency if it is reworded.

You can read my other article on dependencies in project management to learn more about them.

Difference between Project Assumptions and Risks

A project risk is an uncertain event or condition that can have positive or negative impact on at least one of the project objectives.

Just like the other project management terms, project risk too is a simple English word. If you can understand its English meaning, you will be able to understand the difference between assumptions and risks.

Risks are different from assumptions because they can impact one or more project objectives. Every assumption is a potential risk because if the an assumption goes wrong it can impact the project.

Let’s us revisit the previous example to distinguish between these two terms

The situation was – Project team needs approval of design document from the customer. The project cannot move ahead without this approval.

Here the assumption could be that the project team expects that the approval will happen 2 weeks after the design document is submitted. However, if the approval doesn’t happen in 2 weeks then the project might get delayed.

So, the we can write the risk statement as “the project might get delayed of the design approval doesn’t happen in 2 weeks”.

Again, the same situation can be treated as a risk if it is reworded.

You can read my other article on risks in project management to learn more about them.

Over To You

A question for the readers. Is following statement an assumption or a fact?

“There would always be few Assumptions in every project”.

I would love to hear your thoughts.