Strategic assumptions surfacing and testing (SAST) is a method for approaching ill-structured problems. It can be applied as a dialectical approach to policy and planning.
An ill-structured problem may alternatively be also labelled as a wicked problem. SAST may be applied as a technique of systems thinking.
An ill-structured problem is "one for which various strategies for providing a possible solution rest on assumptions that are in sharp conflict with one another". The purposes for an SAST method are:
Four stages in the method include:
- Assumption specification
- Dialectic phase
- Assumption integration phase
- Composite strategy creation
The method originated through the collaboration between Richard O. Mason and Ian Mitroff, as an extension of the philosophy on the design of inquiring systems originating from C. West Churchman. SAST follows the prescriptions of dialectic inquiry, sweeping in multiple perspective onto the full breadth of underlying assumptions to collaborative problem solving and strategic design.