Open-ended questions that unlock broad thinking.
How Might We... is a way of starting a question to kick-start a discussion. The open-ended, optimistic phrasing is designed to encourage broad thinking. This technique was developed at P&G in the 1970s, and it has been used and promoted extensively by the design company IDEO.
This is a useful technique to quickly generate ideas that get to the heart of the problem you're trying to solve. By using the positive starting point, you quickly focus on generating useful, helpful approaches that are more likely to work for your audience.
To use this technique, put the letters HMW at the top of a post-it and then write what you want to achieve. Be careful of coming up with a closed HMW that tries to get to solutions too soon. Keep the language and challenge open.
Example HMWs:
After asking a few HMW questions you may find it useful to ask:
This is a useful technique to quickly generate ideas that get to the heart of the problem you're trying to solve. By using the positive starting point, you quickly focus on generating useful, helpful approaches that are more likely to work for your audience.
Turn the challenge into a set of How Might We questions, keeping the phrasing open and optimistic and holding off on solutions.
Turn the challenge into a set of How Might We questions, keeping the phrasing open and optimistic, and holding off on solutions. Follow up with "why" to broaden each question and "what's stopping us" to get tactical.
Use How Might We...? when a group is starting to generate ideas and conversations keep jumping to solutions too soon. Framing the challenge as open, optimistic questions holds it open long enough for broad, useful thinking to emerge.
Using this tool with a skilled facilitator means that discussions are focused, time is used efficiently, and the group moves toward consensus, making the session productive and impactful.
