What assumptions have been made by the sponsor or design team?  Assumptions are statements that the design team will not spend time or effort in verifying.  These statements will simply be accepted as facts.   A few years ago a group of students designed a machine sort of bullets by their weight. A competitive shooter believed that ammunition with less variation in weight would be more accurate. The design team decided not to test his assumption. Instead they accepted the assumption as fact and moved on to design the product.

In the design process, assumptions are considered true and not tested. The testing of those assumptions is usually out of scope of the project. Therefore it is important to state your assumptions before you begin the design process.

What assumptions have you or your sponsor made about the project? Should you question any of these assumptions in order to design a more innovative product?