# How to Use the Identify-Assumptions Skill for Risk Assessment with an Impact × Risk Matrix

> Learn to use the identify-assumptions skill for risk assessment with an impact x risk matrix. Surface critical assumptions for immediate validation and reduce project risk.

- Repository: [Pawel Huryn/pm-skills](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills)
- Tags: how-to-guide
- Published: 2026-06-26

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**The identify-assumptions skill extracts risky assumptions from product descriptions and feeds them into the prioritize-assumptions skill, which maps each item on an Impact × Risk matrix to surface "leap-of-faith" assumptions requiring immediate validation.**

The phuryn/pm-skills repository provides structured markdown-based skills for product discovery workflows. The **identify-assumptions** skill analyzes product ideas from multiple stakeholder perspectives, generating structured outputs that the **prioritize-assumptions** skill converts into an Impact × Risk matrix for strategic decision-making.

## Understanding the Identify-Assumptions Skill

The repository provides two variants of the skill located in `pm-product-discovery/skills/`. Both analyze ideas from Product Manager, Designer, and Engineer viewpoints, but differ in scope:

**identify-assumptions-existing** ([`pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-existing/SKILL.md`](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/blob/main/pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-existing/SKILL.md))
- Targets features added to existing products
- Categories: **Value**, **Usability**, **Viability**, **Feasibility**

**identify-assumptions-new** ([`pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-new/SKILL.md`](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/blob/main/pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-new/SKILL.md))
- Targets new product ideas
- Extended categories: Value, Usability, Viability, Feasibility, plus **Ethics**, **Go-to-Market**, **Strategy & Objectives**, and **Team**

Each assumption output includes a rationale, potential failure mode, and initial confidence level, creating the input required for quantitative risk scoring.

## How the Impact × Risk Matrix Works

The **prioritize-assumptions** skill ([`pm-product-discovery/skills/prioritize-assumptions/SKILL.md`](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/blob/main/pm-product-discovery/skills/prioritize-assumptions/SKILL.md)) receives the assumption list and calculates two scores:

- **Impact** = Opportunity Score × Number of Customers (where Opportunity Score = Importance × (1 − Satisfaction))
- **Risk** = (1 − Confidence) × Effort

The skill then classifies assumptions into four quadrants:

| Quadrant | Interpretation | Action |
|----------|----------------|--------|
| **Low Impact / Low Risk** | Minimal value, low uncertainty | Defer |
| **High Impact / Low Risk** | High value, proven feasibility | Implement |
| **Low Impact / High Risk** | Low value, high uncertainty | Reject |
| **High Impact / High Risk** | **Leap-of-faith** | Design experiment |

As implemented in the source code, items landing in the High Impact / High Risk quadrant trigger the `brainstorm-experiments-new` step to design cheap validation tests.

## Practical Implementation Examples

### Evaluating Existing Features

Use the existing product skill when refining current functionality:

```markdown
/identify-assumptions-existing
Feature: Inline comment threading for our project-management SaaS
Context: Users often lose context when replying to older comments.

```

The skill returns a structured table:

| Assumption | Category | What could go wrong? | Confidence |
|------------|----------|---------------------|------------|
| Users will adopt the new UI without training | Usability | Learning curve too steep | Medium |
| The backend can handle real-time updates for 10k concurrent users | Feasibility | Scaling bottleneck | Low |

### Assessing New Product Opportunities

For new initiatives, use the extended categories:

```markdown
/identify-assumptions-new
Product: AI-powered writing assistant for non-native speakers
Goal: Reduce grammar errors by 30% in the first month.

```

This includes additional risk categories such as Ethics (user trust in AI) and Go-to-Market (acquisition channels), as defined in lines 37-40 of the skill file.

### Running the Complete Discovery Pipeline

The `/discover` command ([`pm-product-discovery/commands/discover.md`](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/blob/main/pm-product-discovery/commands/discover.md)) orchestrates the full workflow:

```markdown
/discover AI writing assistant for non-native speakers

```

This executes the chain: **brainstorm → identify-assumptions-new → prioritize-assumptions → brainstorm-experiments**.

The prioritize-assumptions step produces the Impact × Risk matrix:

| # | Assumption | Category | Impact | Risk | Quadrant |

|---|------------|----------|--------|------|----------|
| 1 | Users will trust AI suggestions | Ethics | 8 | 2 | High Impact / Low Risk |
| 2 | We can train a model with <5k sentences | Feasibility | 7 | 7 | High Impact / High Risk |

Assumption 2 surfaces as a leap-of-faith item, prompting immediate experiment design rather than implementation.

## Summary

- The **identify-assumptions** skill in phuryn/pm-skills provides structured risk extraction from product descriptions, available in `identify-assumptions-existing` and `identify-assumptions-new` variants.
- **Impact** scores derive from the ICE model (Opportunity Score × Customer count), while **Risk** scores calculate uncertainty multiplied by effort.
- The **prioritize-assumptions** skill maps assumptions to a 2×2 matrix, highlighting High Impact / High Risk "leap-of-faith" assumptions requiring validation.
- The `/discover` command automates the full pipeline from assumption identification to experiment generation.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What is the difference between identify-assumptions-existing and identify-assumptions-new?

The **existing** variant ([`pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-existing/SKILL.md`](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/blob/main/pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-existing/SKILL.md)) analyzes features for current products across four categories: Value, Usability, Viability, and Feasibility. The **new** variant ([`pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-new/SKILL.md`](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/blob/main/pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-new/SKILL.md)) extends this to eight categories for greenfield products, adding Ethics, Go-to-Market, Strategy & Objectives, and Team risk considerations.

### How does the prioritize-assumptions skill calculate Impact and Risk scores?

According to the skill file ([`pm-product-discovery/skills/prioritize-assumptions/SKILL.md`](https://github.com/phuryn/pm-skills/blob/main/pm-product-discovery/skills/prioritize-assumptions/SKILL.md)), **Impact** equals Opportunity Score multiplied by the number of customers affected, where Opportunity Score derives from Importance × (1 − Satisfaction). **Risk** equals (1 − Confidence) multiplied by Effort, producing a normalized score for matrix placement.

### What constitutes a "leap-of-faith" assumption in the matrix?

Leap-of-faith assumptions occupy the **High Impact / High Risk** quadrant. These represent critical hypotheses with massive potential value but high uncertainty that could sink the product if wrong. The matrix flags these for immediate experimental validation before committing engineering resources.

### Can I use the identify-assumptions skill without the full discovery command?

Yes. Both skills function as standalone markdown plugins. You can invoke `/identify-assumptions-existing` or `/identify-assumptions-new` directly for focused risk-assessment sessions without triggering the complete `/discover` pipeline, though you will need to manually pass outputs to `/prioritize-assumptions` to generate the Impact × Risk matrix.