Which mitigation strategy involves challenging assumptions by presenting opposing viewpoints?

• A. Red Teaming
• B. Devil's Advocacy
• C. Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH)
• D. Key Assumptions Check

Answer: (B)

Challenging assumptions by presenting opposing viewpoints is the deliberate act of playing devil’s advocate. This approach assigns someone to argue against the favored position, forcing the group to defend its beliefs, questions, and supporting evidence. The goal is to surface biases, hidden risks, and gaps that a cooperative or confirming environment might miss, so decisions become more robust.

This technique fits best because it centers on generating strong counterarguments to test how well the reasoning holds up under scrutiny. By systematically exploring why the opposite view could be true and pushing for answers to challenging questions, you weaken overconfidence and strengthen the overall assessment.

Other approaches involve broader adversarial testing or structured evaluation of competing explanations, but they don’t necessarily center on the explicit, oppositional debate that devil’s advocacy uses to expose weaknesses in assumptions.