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Stop asking “what features do users want?” and start asking “what job is the budget doing for them?” Your hidden premise is that budgeting equals tracking and restricting spending. But for many users, budgeting is really about feeling in control of the future — reducing anxiety, not counting pennies.

To surface the premise, run a “premise audit.” List every assumption your product embeds: budgets must be monthly, categories are fixed, overspending is bad, users want accuracy over simplicity. Then rank them by how “obvious” they feel — the most obvious ones are your real walls.

Test the highest-leverage one with a cheap experiment. Don’t build. Use a landing page or a concierge MVP. For example, if your assumption is “budgets prevent overspending,” test the opposite: a product that absorbs financial shocks by auto-adjusting the plan when life happens. Measure whether users engage more with “forgiving” than “strict” logic.

Finally, triangulate with churn interviews. Ask users who left: “What did you expect the app to do that it didn’t?” Their answers will name the unspoken premise you never wrote down. That’s your boundary. Break it, don’t polish it.

Start With Assumption Audits, Not Rebellion

Have students list three implicit assumptions behind each lab step—e.g., "the solution must be stirred for 2 minutes" assumes homogeneity is time-dependent, not volume-dependent. Frame the manual as a hypothesis, not scripture. Ask: What would falsify this step?

Design Experiments That Probe, Not Destroy

Pick one low-risk assumption per lab. Example: if the manual says "use distilled water," test tap water's impact on the result. Keep the variable isolated. Have students predict the outcome before running it, then compare. This converts "deviation" from failure to data.

Create a "Deviation Autopsy" Protocol

When results diverge, run a 3-step debrief: 1) What did we assume? 2) Which assumption, if wrong, explains the gap? 3) What minimal test would confirm that? This replaces faking with curiosity. For the "impossible" data, treat it as a gift—it likely reveals an unexamined assumption about the equipment, timing, or even the manual's origin.

Institutionalize the Challenge

End each lab with one question: What would we change in the manual, and why? Collect these as a "revision log." Students stop freezing when they see the manual as a living document—and you get a curriculum that improves itself.

Diagnose the boundary before you touch it

Stop asking "can we change this?" and start asking "what assumption makes this rule exist?" Write down every step in the transfer process, then for each step, label the reason it exists. Force yourselves to use only two labels: physical law (e.g., patient must be physically moved) or regulatory requirement (cite the exact statute — if you can't cite it, it's not regulatory). Everything else goes into a third bucket: "inherited habit."

Run the three-question test

1. Who decided this rule, and when? If the answer is "we've always done it," it's a self-imposed boundary.
2. What would break if we removed it? If the answer is "nothing, except comfort," remove it in a pilot.
3. Can we meet the rule's intent differently? Regulations aim at safety outcomes — verify whether the paperwork actually produces that outcome, or merely the appearance of it.

Experiment, don't revolt

Pick one transfer type, strip out the habits, keep the cited regulations, and run it for two weeks. Measure error rates and time. If nothing breaks, you've found your false boundary. The real ones will hold under scrutiny — that's the point of the test.