Assumption Categories for New vs. Existing Products in Discovery: The PM Skills Framework

New products require validation across eight assumption categories (Value, Usability, Viability, Feasibility, Ethics, Go-to-Market, Strategy & Objectives, and Team), while existing product features focus on four core categories (Value, Usability, Viability, and Feasibility).

The PM Skills repository provides a structured discovery framework that distinguishes between the risk profiles of new product ideas and features added to existing products. Understanding these distinct assumption categories helps product teams surface hidden risks early and apply the appropriate validation depth for each context.

Assumption Categories for New Products

For new product ideas, the identify-assumptions-new skill defined in pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-new/SKILL.md expands beyond the classic four-risk model to address the unique uncertainties of launching novel offerings. The eight categories are specified at lines 33-40:

• Value: Assumes the product creates real value for customers and drives long-term retention.
• Usability: Assumes users can figure out how to use the product, onboard quickly, and manage cognitive load.
• Viability: Assumes the organization can sell and monetize the product, provide customer support, achieve financial sustainability, scale operations, and maintain compliance.
• Feasibility: Assumes the technology exists to build the solution, integration is possible, and the team can deliver efficiently at scale.
• Ethics: Assumes the product should be built at all, considering ethical concerns and potential risks to customers.
• Go-to-Market: Assumes the team has identified the right channels, messaging, timing, and launch plan to convince customers to try the product.
• Strategy & Objectives: Assumes the strategic positioning is sound, competitors cannot easily replicate the offering, and macro-environmental factors (political, economic, legal, technological, environmental) have been considered.
• Team: Assumes the team has the right people, tools, and cohesion to deliver, and will remain intact long enough to ship.

Assumption Categories for Existing Products

For features added to existing products, the identify-assumptions-existing skill located at pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-existing/SKILL.md (lines 26-29) narrows the scope to four core dimensions:

• Value: Assumes the feature delivers measurable value and solves a real user problem.
• Usability: Assumes users can discover and learn the feature without excessive cognitive overhead.
• Viability: Assumes marketing, sales, finance, and legal teams can support the feature and that it remains financially sustainable within the existing business model.
• Feasibility: Assumes the engineering team can build the feature with existing technology, addressing any integration or performance risks.

Architectural Rationale: Why the Difference Matters

The PM Skills framework employs a multi-perspective devil’s-advocate approach, requiring input from Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers to surface hidden risks. For new products, the framework expands the classic model with four additional dimensions because market entry involves broader uncertainty and higher existential stakes. Questions regarding team cohesion, ethical implications, and competitive positioning become critical failure points when nothing yet exists in the market.

For existing products, these foundational concerns are typically settled. The team composition is known, the market position is established, and the ethical framework is already defined. Therefore, discovery focuses strictly on validating the feature's fit within the established four-risk structure.

How to Apply These Categories in Practice

You can invoke these assumption-mapping skills directly within the PM Skills framework using Claude Code or slash commands.

Using the /discover Command

The unified discover command automatically selects the appropriate assumption set based on product type:

/discover AI-powered meeting summarizer for remote teams

Add the --type flag to specify new or existing explicitly:

/discover AI-powered meeting summarizer for remote teams --type new

Direct CLI Invocation

Target the specific skills explicitly using the Claude Code CLI:

# For new products (8 categories)

claude plugin run pm-product-discovery@pm-skills identify-assumptions-new \
  "AI-powered meeting summarizer for remote teams"

# For existing products (4 categories)

claude plugin run pm-product-discovery@pm-skills identify-assumptions-existing \
  "Add a dark-mode toggle to the dashboard"

Both commands return a markdown table mapping assumptions to confidence levels and suggested validation tests.

Slash Commands in Claude Cowork

Within Claude Cowork, use dedicated slash commands to trigger guided walkthroughs:

/identify-assumptions-new

This prompts for your product description and walks through all eight categories defined in SKILL.md lines 33-40.

/identify-assumptions-existing

This triggers the four-category validation flow defined in SKILL.md lines 26-29.

Summary

• New products require validation against eight assumption categories: Value, Usability, Viability, Feasibility, Ethics, Go-to-Market, Strategy & Objectives, and Team.
• Existing product features require validation against four core categories: Value, Usability, Viability, and Feasibility.
• The PM Skills repository implements these through the identify-assumptions-new and identify-assumptions-existing skills.
• New product discovery expands the classic four-risk model to address market-entry uncertainties, team composition risks, and strategic positioning.
• Both skills use a multi-perspective devil’s-advocate approach involving Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do new products have more assumption categories than existing products?

New products face higher uncertainty and existential risks that extend beyond feature viability. According to the PM Skills source code, categories like Ethics, Go-to-Market, Strategy & Objectives, and Team are critical when nothing yet exists in the market. For existing products, these factors are typically already validated or constrained by the current business context, allowing discovery to focus strictly on the four core risks.

How does the PM Skills framework validate these assumptions?

The framework uses a multi-perspective devil’s-advocate method where Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers collaboratively challenge each assumption category. The skills defined in pm-product-discovery/skills/identify-assumptions-new/SKILL.md and identify-assumptions-existing/SKILL.md provide structured prompts and return confidence levels with suggested tests for each identified risk.

Can I use these assumption categories outside of the Claude Code ecosystem?

While the specific command-line tools (claude plugin run, /discover, slash commands) require the PM Skills repository and Claude Code, the underlying eight-category and four-category frameworks are methodology-agnostic. Teams can manually apply these assumption categories in any discovery process by referencing the definitions in the PM Skills GitHub repository.

What is the difference between Viability and Feasibility in this framework?

Viability concerns business sustainability—whether the product can be sold, supported, and scaled profitably while remaining compliant. Feasibility concerns technical capability—whether the engineering team can build, integrate, and deliver the solution with available technology. This distinction holds for both new and existing product contexts.

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