Everything you need to make the internal case—or to commission directly. The Blitz applies the full Think Wrong methodology to one specific challenge your team cannot afford to get wrong. One to five days. Your challenge. Proven outcomes.
A Think Wrong Blitz is commissioned when a team has a specific capital-building opportunity—an AI deployment, a growth initiative, a market entry, a product launch, a transformation decision—where capital is at stake and the assumptions beneath the decision have not been rigorously tested.
The Blitz produces evidence, not ideas. By the close of the engagement, the team has surfaced the assumptions silently governing the decision, classified them against the evidence that actually exists, identified which assumptions would change the decision if proved wrong, and designed the smallest credible tests to resolve them. The capital-building opportunity remains—what changes is whether you advance on belief or on evidence.
The most expensive innovation failure is not the bet that didn't work. It is the bet that was built on an assumption no one thought to examine.
Three commissioned Think Wrong Blitzes, delivered across a decade, at three very different organisations facing three very different capital-allocation decisions. Each shows the same method at work on a different challenge—and each produced an output the commissioning organisation could act on before the larger capital committed at scale.
Genentech had developed a therapy they believed would trigger the immune system to attack cancer cells. Clinical trial investment would run into the hundreds of millions. The assumption everyone carried—that the investigator meetings launching each trial were "just how this is done"—had never been examined.
Three days. A cross-functional team—executives, scientists, marketers—in one room. The Blitz surfaced the assumption, designed a completely reimagined investigator meeting, and tested it. The redesigned meeting became the highest-rated doctors and nurses had experienced. Enrolment in a critical oncology trial accelerated.
"Simple changes made it clear that you're not just a cog in the wheel of this great grinding process—you're an integral part of one of the largest experiments in curing a fatal disease. You're a part of history."
—Kathryn Woody, Operations Programme Manager, Genentech
SodaStream faced a specific challenge: how do you reposition a kitchen appliance as an environmental and cultural movement without losing the functional buyers who made the business work? The assumption that brand repositioning required internal consensus before external validation had stalled every previous attempt.
The Blitz reframed the challenge, surfaced the assumption, and designed a small bet: a single, testable campaign concept that bypassed the internal approval cycle and went directly to external validation. The concept that emerged—focusing on plastic bottle waste rather than product features—became the foundation of the repositioning that turned SodaStream into an acquisition target for PepsiCo.
A one-day Think Wrong session convening 100 community leaders from across the political spectrum. The assumption governing every previous attempt at bipartisan civic infrastructure was that political diversity was incompatible with coalition action.
The Blitz inverted that assumption. By the close of the single day, the cohort had produced two specific, independently actionable outputs: the blueprint for an independent Leaders Forum and the structure of two bipartisan PAC campaigns. Both moved forward. The assumption that diversity prevented coalition was not just challenged—it was disproved inside the engagement.
Different industries. Different scales. Different timelines. Different kinds of capital at stake. What the three engagements share is not the output—it is the underlying structure of what the Blitz does to an organisation that commits to running one.
In Genentech, the assumption was that investigator meetings were a regulatory formality rather than a commercial lever. In SodaStream, the assumption was that brand repositioning required internal consensus before external validation. At the White House, the assumption was that political diversity was incompatible with coalition infrastructure. In all three cases, the assumption had been carried forward untested because the cost of examining it felt larger than the cost of simply acting on it. The Blitz inverts that calculation—it makes examination fast enough to be worth it, before the decision locks the assumption in permanently.
A Blitz is scoped to the decision it serves. Some capital-building opportunities demand a single intensive day; others require three or five. Every commissioned engagement is scoped individually in the initial conversation.
All three formats produce the same four artefacts. Duration determines depth and scope—not whether each artefact is delivered. Pricing is scoped in the initial conversation based on duration, team size, and challenge complexity. Contact hello@solvenext.com to scope.
Every commissioned Think Wrong Blitz—at every duration—produces the same four artefacts. What varies with duration is the depth and scope of each, not whether it is produced.
"Of the assumptions we surfaced this engagement—which ones, if they turned out to be wrong, would change a capital allocation decision that only your CFO or CEO can authorise?"
A Blitz is commissioned by the person whose decision the engagement will serve. That person is not always the most senior in the room—but they are always the one who can act on what the Blitz produces.
One sentence that frames the request, names the business case, and invites a conversation. Use in any informal context where you need to introduce the idea before following up with more detail.
I'd like to bring in Think Wrong to run a Blitz on our AI deployment before we scale—three days to surface and test the assumptions we've been acting on before the next phase of investment commits.
There's a methodology called Think Wrong that applies structured assumption-testing to a live challenge in 1–3 days—I think we should run it on [INITIATIVE] before the Q3 capital commitment.
Before we take [DECISION] to the board, I want to run a Think Wrong Blitz—a 1–3 day commissioned engagement that surfaces the assumptions underneath our recommendation and designs the smallest tests to validate the most critical ones.
Think Wrong runs a commissioned 1–5 day engagement—called a Blitz—that applies their methodology to one specific decision your team has capital committed to or about to commit. It produces a tested assumption map and small bets before the money is locked in. I want to commission one for [CHALLENGE].
A one-screen email that names the specific decision, makes the business case, and proposes a scope conversation. Personalise the bracketed fields. The rest is ready to send.
Hi [NAME],
[INSERT one sentence connecting the Blitz to the specific challenge. Examples:
— "Our [AI deployment / growth initiative / market entry] is [X weeks] from the next capital commitment, and we haven't formally tested the assumptions underneath it."
— "Before we take [DECISION] to the board, I want to ensure we've done the rigorous assumption work, not just the financial modelling."
]
I'd like to commission a Think Wrong Blitz—a 1–3 day commissioned engagement that applies structured assumption-testing to our specific challenge with our people in the room. Think Wrong is the methodology behind a ten-year body of work used at Genentech, Microsoft, Airbus, the White House, and NATO. The engagement format (the Blitz) is designed for exactly this: one specific capital-building decision, tested before the commitment locks in.
The Blitz produces four specific artefacts: a Capital-Building Opportunity Portfolio, a Super Vital Assumption Map, small bets scoped to test the highest-consequence assumptions, and an updated decision canvas ready for the next governance conversation.
The scoping conversation is complimentary and produces a written proposal within one week. I'd like to have that conversation before [DATE].
Can we discuss?
[YOUR NAME]
Use this as the formal justification document for a budget committee, L&D team, or CFO. Adapt the bracketed fields. The structure answers the five questions every approval process asks before it says yes.
A commissioned Think Wrong Blitz: a 1–5 day engagement that applies the full Think Wrong methodology to one specific capital-building challenge. The team surfaces, classifies, and designs tests for the highest-consequence assumptions beneath [CHALLENGE]—before the next capital commitment.
[CHALLENGE] is [X weeks/months] from a capital commitment of [APPROXIMATE SCALE]. The assumptions beneath this decision have not been formally tested. The cost of testing them now is a 1–3 day engagement. The cost of testing them after capital commits is the capital.
Four specific artefacts: a Capital-Building Opportunity Portfolio, a Super Vital Assumption Map, small bets scoped to test the most critical unknowns, and an updated Conversation Canvas for the next governance meeting. Plus the escalation question answered: which assumptions, if wrong, would change a decision only the CFO or CEO can authorise.
Think Wrong is a ten-year methodology—published 2016, third printing 2025, translated into Spanish and Arabic. Applied at Genentech (accelerated oncology trial enrolment), SodaStream (repositioning that preceded PepsiCo acquisition), White House (produced two bipartisan PAC campaigns), Microsoft, Airbus, NATO, Starbucks, Deloitte, Stanford.
Within 30 days of the engagement: a written summary of the three most consequential assumptions identified and the small tests proposed for each; a 60-minute assumption-surfacing session with the broader team; and a recommendation on whether any escalation-level assumptions require a governance conversation at CFO or CEO level.
A complimentary scoping conversation with Solve Next produces a written proposal within one week. No obligation. Contact: hello@solvenext.com · +1 415 209 5065
The four most common reasons a commissioning authority hesitates. Each one has a direct, honest response.
An ROI calculation requires a fixed fee in the denominator—which a scoped engagement does not have. The more honest frame is the asymmetry between the cost of testing an assumption before capital commits and the cost of discovering it was wrong after. Use the table below to make that argument with your own numbers.
| Decision type | Typical capital at stake | Cost of a wrong untested assumption | Blitz format |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI deployment | €500K–€5M | 50–100% of investment if wrong premise not caught before scaling | 1–3 days |
| Growth bet or market entry | €1M–€20M | 30–80% of committed capital sunk before wrong premise is surfaced | 1–3 days |
| Transformation programme | €2M–€50M programme spend | 40–70% wasted on executing the wrong version of the challenge | 3–5 days |
| Product launch | €500K–€5M development cost | Full development cost plus opportunity cost if core user assumption is wrong | 1–3 days |
| Board-level strategic commitment | €5M–€100M+ | Cost of reversal compounds with each phase of commitment—Phase III correction cost runs 20× Phase I | 3–5 days |
Take the capital commitment for the specific decision you want to commission the Blitz on. Apply the cost-of-wrong-assumption percentage relevant to that decision type. The resulting number is the downside risk of advancing on an untested assumption. The Blitz fee—whatever it is scoped at—is a fraction of that number. That asymmetry is the argument.
The question is not whether the Blitz is worth the investment. The question is whether the decision is large enough that testing the assumptions underneath it—before the capital commits—is worth 1–5 days. If the decision is over €500K, the answer is almost always yes.
A Blitz inside the Solve Next architecture leads somewhere specific. The assumptions surfaced are not a workshop takeaway—they are the entry point to a governance conversation that only the CFO or CEO can authorise.
"Of the assumptions we surfaced this engagement—which ones, if they turned out to be wrong, would change a capital allocation decision that only your CFO or CEO can authorise?"
That question is the designed mechanism. The Blitz produces the evidence. The escalation question connects the evidence to the governance conversation. For organisations where that conversation reveals a broader capital exposure picture—across the six capital domains that govern whether an institution endures—the next step is the Growth Gap Diagnostic.
The scoping conversation is complimentary and produces a written proposal within one week. No obligation. Tell us the challenge and we will scope the engagement.