Assumptions are rules of thumb that influence our choices. We use these rules of thumb both as individuals and as organisations. When we create our mental picture of how change is going to happen, we make a number of assumptions about the situation (context) and how people and organisations are going to act and behave. These are called contextual factors. But we also make assumptions about the Pathway of Change that we are designing:
We have to make the assumptions explicit, so that they can be debated, enriched and checked (by us before we start to do things or by evaluators in the course of an intervention or thereafter.
So listing the assumptions is not enough: it is important to test them – not just at the design phase but throughout the lifetime of the Theory of Change. This is why the identification of the assumptions is important, because then we can verify if they hold true. If they don’t, we will need to update our ToC and adapt or increase our interventions.
Together, the conceptual pathway / Theory of Action and the assumptions make sure that the ToC can be tested and validated or disproved (partially or as a whole). Evaluators can verify to what degree the outcomes are achieved, whether the assumptions hold true and whether the theory as a whole leads to the achievement (or contributes to) of the end goal.
The result of this (initial) process is: