Assumptions register

Most projects I've worked on have used risk registers, action registers, etc. But I've never come across a team who have used an assumptions register - I've just googled it and it seems to be a real thing.

It got me thinking that for R&D, small projects and scale-up work, the risks are typically low cost. You are doing something with a lot of inherent risk anyway, so you probably got the funding on the basis that it will likely fail. So is a risk log particularly important in that case?

What I think is much more important is the assumptions a team is making. Often it is the assumptions we make which are validated too late in the project, which cause problems - it's almost never the stuff you wrote in the risk register. Being brutally honest about the assumptions you're making, and aggressively trying to validate them, is probably the best way to move an R&D project forward.

Assumptions about the availability of equipment, material, supply chains, lead times, and the market all lead to the ultimate success or failure of a project. If you have validated everything on the assumptions list, you probably have a successful project. By listing out everything, you'd be surprised how many assumptions you're making, and how many could be validated with a simple conversation.