Design Thinking & Innovation

How Might We

Turn a problem or insight into many "How might we..." questions and pick the ones worth brainstorming.

Time: 20 to 40 min
With: Design or product team
You get: A short list of HMW questions ready for brainstorming

How to use this worksheet

Start from a real problem or insight from research, not from a solution.
Write HMW questions: "How might we ... ?". Aim for 10 or more variations at different levels of breadth.
Check each question: broad enough to allow many solutions, narrow enough to be actionable, and free of a built-in solution.
Move the best three to five to "Selected for brainstorming".

Problem or insight

What did you learn? State it as an observation about the user.

Prompts and example

Ask yourself

What is the underlying need behind this?
Who exactly is affected?

Example

Users abandon checkout because shipping costs only appear on the last step.

How might we questions

Write HMW questions and move the good ones to the selected list.

All questions

Write many, judge later

Selected for brainstorming

The three to five best

Prompts

Ask yourself

Try changing one word: "show" to "predict", "customer" to "newcomer".
Flip the problem: how might we make checkout abandonment worse? Then reverse it.

Questions

Before you finish

No question contains a solution.
There are at least ten variations.
Selected questions are broad enough for more than one idea.

About How Might We

The HMW method was developed at Procter and Gamble and popularised by IDEO and the Stanford d.school. "How" assumes a solution exists, "might" allows for wild ideas, and "we" makes it a team effort.

The wording matters. Too broad ("How might we fix retail?") and nothing happens. Too narrow ("How might we add a banner?") and you have already chosen the solution.