How might we...?

Turn your social change interview insights into actionable questions using the How Might We framework.

Look to Proctor & Gamble's How might we methodology to help you turn your research into actionable questions. This innovation strategy is used by IDEO, Google and Facebook and uses the power of language to spark creativity.

To use it, look for opportunities within you research and write optimistic phrases describing the opportunities, beginning each sentence with the three words, How might we.

Where to find opportunities within your research

Opportunities lie where your users experience friction, complications or distress. Wherever the current experience is not working for your users there is an opportunity to improve the scenario.

An example

If during your research you uncovered that your users struggled making appointment times during the opening hours of a mental health service, you could turn this opportunity for improvement into the following How might we question:

How might we make our mental health service available to users when they need it?

Notice how open-ended the How might we question is. It does not influence the answer to the question. Avoid the temptation to write closed questions that impose solutions such as:

How might we ensure our mental health service is open outside of the opening hours of 9am to 5pm?

This phrasing of the how might we question above narrows the creative opportunities. There would be the temptation to simply change the opening hours. This may be a great solution but it minimises the chance of coming up with more innovative ideas.

Further reading

• The Secret Phrase Top Innovators Use by Warren Berger - Harvard Business Review