Five Ws and H

What is this technique about

This is a simple but powerful tool for cutting quickly through the outward symptoms of a problem to reveal its underlying causes (WHY), so that you can deal with it once and for all. How to dela with the issue is represented by the H (HOW).

The Five Ws and H are questions the answers to which are considered basic in information gathering or problem solving. These questions are sometimes called journalistic questions because all news stories are supposed to answer them.

The reasoning behind this technique is that any analysis of facts and information is only complete when we can answer 6 questions:

• • Who (was involved)?
  • What (happened)?
  • Where (did it take place)?
  • When (did it take place)?
  • Why (did that happen)?
  • How (did it happen)?

Where does it come from 

This standard series of questions has been used since antiquity. The Greek rhetorician Hermagoras of Temnos (1st century BC) defined seven “circumstances” as sources of information about an issue: who, what, when, where, why, in what way, by what means.

A famous poem of the English journalist and writer J. R. Kipling, accompanying the tale of “The Elephant’s Child” opens with:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

For which purposes it is used (why in your engineering teaching)

This creativity technique is a standard tool used by journalists as a method of inquiry and is sometimes called “reporter questions”. The aim of this inquiry approach is to understand the given problem more precisely in order to be able to define it better and to find a solution.

The method can be used in different circumstances, e.g.:

• • as a checklist to keep in mind in a discussion or when you want to to generate further questions;
  • to generate data-gathering questions, during the early stages of problem solving;
  • to generate idea-provoking questions, to help build on existing ideas while brainstorming, brainwriting or another similar technique.

This technique can be used when teaching storytelling or story writing, as well as in practicing brainwriting, brainstorming, and in different situations that require to identify, analyse and resolve a problem.

How to use it

In the process, the participants are supposed to successively pose the six questions in regard to the problem to be solved:

• • Who?
  • What?
  • When?
  • Where?
  • Why?
  • How?

Each question should have a factual answer; none of the questions can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. Walking through the Five Ws and 1 H allows us to see if we left anything out.

The Five Ws and H are often used in the problem exploration phase to improve the understanding of the challenge before searching for solutions. Here are some questions that could be asked [3]:

1. 1. What is the problem (or need for creativity)?
   2. Why is this a problem or an opportunity?
   3. When (or by when) do we need to have solved it or found a creative response?
   4. Who is responsible for this, who can be involved in this or have an idea that can help us to find a solution?
   5. How will we evaluate which is the best solution if we come up with alternatives? How will we implement it? How will we find the resources?
   6. Where will these solutions be applicable?

The technique can be used in many different ways, e.g. [3]:

• • By an individual: asking him or herself the questions and writing down the answers
  • By a team, in the way of brainwriting: the team sits around a table and circulates six sheets of paper titled What? Why? When? Who? How? Where? Person “A” starts with sheet “What”, person “B” with sheet “Why”, person “C” with sheet “When” and so on.  The first person writes down some ideas about “What”, then passes the sheet to the next person who adds another couple of suggestions and passes to the next person, etc.  Once the six sheets of paper have gone around all members of the group you will probably have 12 suggestions per sheet and 6X12 for the whole exercise.
  • By a team, in a way of brainstorming: the facilitator stands in front of a flipchart, asking the questions and trying to write quickly to keep up with the ideas as they are shouted out.