The Assumption Register: A Playbook for Honest Projects

Every project begins with things you know and things you assume. Trouble starts when the second list quietly migrates into the first. The assumption register is a one-page defence: every unverified input — statistics, access, logos, even the deployment target — is written down, dated, and marked with how it will be verified.

The rules are short. One: anything not verified from a primary source goes on the register, however confident anyone feels. Two: nothing on the register ships as fact — placeholders are visibly placeholders. Three: every register entry has an owner and a verification path. Four: the register is reviewed at every stage gate, and closing an entry requires evidence, not agreement.

In our MindCept engagement, the register carried an entry most projects never write down: 'deployment target — access unverified.' Verifying it revealed the domain hosted a live business website with no upload path at all. The cheapest line on the page prevented the most expensive possible incident.

Steal the format: a table with Assumption, Source, Risk if wrong, Verification path, Owner, Status. Open it on day one. Read it out loud in every review. Projects rarely fail from hard problems — they fail from confident guesses nobody wrote down.