Liberating Structures - What, So What, Now What? W³

The Liberating Structure "What, So What, Now What? W³" is one of the 33 structures created by for facilitating meetings and conversations, curated by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless.

When to use "What, So What, Now What? W³"?

As a leader or facilitator, you can use this Liberating Structure to debrief after an event as a retrospective. It can go from a 10 min debrief to a 1 hour or even more, it up to you.

Basically look on progress to date and decide what adjustments are needed. I use it as a Facilitation technique in Workshops too!

How does "What, So What, Now What? W³" work?

Give context why you are using it and what for. Together, let's look back on progress to date and decide what adjustments are needed. The following steps are my suggestion for a 1 hour debrief

Step 1 - What?

• Ask the group "What happened or did you noticed? What facts or observations stood out?"

• Given them 2 minutes to think about it individually and write post-its.

• Afterwards discuss it as a group for 10 minutes and create affinity.

Step 2 - What if? (can be used or not)

• Ask the group "What if had done something different? What could be the outcome if we had done something different?"

• Given them 2 minutes to think about it individually and write post-its.

• Afterwards discuss it as a group for 10 minutes and create affinity.

Step 3 - So what?

• Ask the group "So What is important, which conclusions are emerging? Why is that important? What hypotheses can we make?"

• Given them 2 minutes to think about it individually and write post-its.

• Afterwards discuss it as a group for 10 minutes and create affinity.

Step 4 - Now what?

• Ask the group "Now what actions make sense for you and for this group?"

• Given them 2 minutes to think about it individually and write post-its.

• Afterwards discuss it as a group for 10 minutes and assign people to the actions.

• Don't forget to follow-up on those actions.