Assumption-Based Planning: A Tool for Reducing Avoidable Surprises (RAND Studies in Policy Analysis)

Assumption-Based Planning (ABP) is a tool designed for improving the robustness and adaptability of plans-for reducing the number of avoidable surprises in any plan or planning. It is primarily a "post-planning" tool (recognizing that planning is an iterative process) that concentrates on the assumptions in an already-developed plan that

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is also useful as a part of any planning methodology-a topic taken up in Chapter 9.

Assumption-Based Planning is a planning tool that is primarily useful for improving the robustness and adaptability of existing plans.

At the third level of interest, a planner would be applying ABP and running into practical problems.

At the second level of interest, a planner might wish to apply ABP but would need to know more about it. Chapters 2 through 7

At the first level of interest, a planner might wonder whether ABP would be useful for a particular planning problem.