Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams

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Question #3—What Other Conditions Must Exist?

Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.

—Alan Alda

FIGURE 7.1 The LogFrame Helps Reduce Risk by Managing Assumptions

The Whoops Hall of Shame

• When Mars, the maker of M&M candies, was approached by Steven Spielberg’s marketing crew, they assumed that a movie featuring an alien dropping their candies would be a terrible marketing move. So when ET—The Extra-Terrestrial was released, it was Reese’s Pieces that became an overnight mega-selling candy—much to M&M’s chagrin. Whoops!

• When a large family traveled from the Philippines to Canada with their 23-month-old boy in tow, they had barely enough time at the Vancouver airport to catch a connecting flight. The parents and grandparents made a mad dash to get to the gate in time to catch their flight, but along the way they had gotten separated. The family members boarded separately and their seats weren’t near each other. Each person assumed the little boy was with one of the others. So they didn’t immediately discover that they had left their toddler behind—but can you imagine the shock when they did? Whoops!

• When NASA’s $150 million Orbiter crashed into Mars, analysis showed that the spacecraft builders had worked in the metric system. However, NASA assumed, but failed ...