ABSTRACT
Strategic Assumptions force an "outside to in" view of manager's business. Misuse or nonuse of Strategic Assumptions is a recipe for disaster in setting effective corporate strategies. The strange thing about strategy is decisions that are or may be paramount to manager's business can go unnoticed unless they are actively searching for them. The breach one see with executive thinking is not in the "strategic assumption itself" but the inability to leverage their vast expertise, experience and insight that sits within but remains widely dispersed across their company. The result is that strategic plan creators have no way to test the soundness of their thinking during execution; they often defend erroneous assumptions because there was never any visibility or executive alignment to start with. Because Strategic Assumptions directly impact manager's Product, Market and Capabilities, Implications force their team to draw links from the Assumptions to scenarios that may unfold.
