How to use the Assumption busting template

Start a board from it
Use this template opens a new Freero board with the Assumption busting template on it (sign up free first). On a board you already have, open Templates in the toolbar and search for “Assumption busting”.
Follow the instruction on the board
“Write assumptions as plain statements. Flip each one into its opposite, however silly, then ask what we would build if the flip were true.”
Fill in each part
- We assume What does everyone take for granted here?
- What if the opposite? Flip each assumption.
- Ideas it opens If the flip were true, what would we do?
- Worth testing Which flip deserves a real test?
Bring your team and your agents
Invite people to the board or share a link, and work on it together live. The timer is in the top bar, private mode and voting in the board menu, and Claude or ChatGPT can join through Freero’s MCP server.

Work on it with an AI agent

Connect an assistant once and it works on the board with you, with your permissions: by default it reads and proposes, and people decide.

You ask: “Fill in the Assumption busting board from these notes.”
What happens It reads the board, then proposes sticky notes for it. Nothing changes until someone on the board accepts them.
You ask: “Group what we wrote into themes and list the actions.”
What happens It proposes clusters with a title each and task cards for the actions, labelled with its name and yours.

What-if questions
Ask bold “what if” questions about how things could be different, then sketch what each would mean and the first step to test it.
SCAMPER prompts
Seven ways to twist an existing product or process into new ideas: swap, combine, adapt, resize, repurpose, remove, reverse.
Borrowed ideas
Ask how other industries would solve your problem, then steal their best moves on purpose.
Random word stimulus
Break out of the obvious answers by forcing a link between your problem and a word picked at random.
Starbursting
Question an idea from six sides: who, what, where, when, why and how, as a mind map.
Lotus blossom
Grow one central theme into eight directions, then grow each direction into its own ideas, so you go both wide and deep.