Why make an assumption?

You can say that this is a follow up from my post on Mistakes because assumptions can caused us to make mistakes too. First, we need to know What is an Assumption and as indicated in the The Compact Oxford English Dictionary:

assumption
• noun 1 a thing that is assumed to be true. 2 the action of assuming responsibility or control. 3 (Assumption) the reception of the Virgin Mary bodily into heaven, according to Roman Catholic doctrine.

In other words, it is something that we cannot establish as being true at this point of time, but is likely to be true. If so Why we make an assumption? In order to proceed with what we want to do and without having complete valid information, we need to make assumptions.

For example:

• We assume that because the weather forecast is for sunny day and there is a clear blue sky, so it will not rain and we will not bring an umbrella with us when we leave home.
• We assume everyone knows what to bring when going out for a picnic with friends and families so we will never remind each other what to bring along.
• A simple thing, we assume that everyone knows the route to go to places so we will not bring a map with us.
• We assume that if there is no question being asked that everyone understand and knows what to do.

So what happen if we do wrong assumption? It is a potential of failure and risk for the program/project that we have planned. It has been said that one should never assume anything. However, in real life, when we are in a critical situation (such as lost in the jungle or in the middle of nowhere, being threaten, between life or death, etc...), we must assume or we will stand still of what to do. We should still look at how we can be more confident about our Assumptions and be Responsible.