Coaching practices for How Might We
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How Might We, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- The way I’ve worded this problem to myself already sounds like a verdict
- I have a hunch somebody, somewhere, has already cracked a problem shaped just like mine
- We keep landing on "let’s each give up half," and we both walk away a little resentful and a little short
- I only ever see this thing as the one job I built it for, but I keep wondering who else
- I’m staring at this problem convinced I need some whole new skill I don’t have, when I have a hunch something I already do well in another part of my life could quietly solve most of it if I just turned it sideways.
Practices that may help
- Rephrase the problem as a "How might we…?" question
Convert a problem statement into a question that invites solutions without prescribing them.
Problem Reframing: Solving the Right Problem First - Adapt
Ask: what could be adapted or borrowed from another context, industry, or era to solve this problem?
SCAMPER: A Systematic Creativity Technique - Model synergy: ask "what would a solution have to look like to address both?"
Use the agreed criteria as a design brief and generate solutions that meet all of them.
The Third Alternative, Made Practical - Possible Selves, Made Practical
Hazel Markus’s possible-selves framework holds that motivation is driven not only by who we are now but by vivid mental representations of who we could become — including hoped-for and feared future selves. These cognitive structures provide direction and energy for behavior, and deliberately developing them is a tractable approach to sustained motivation. - Put to other uses
Ask: who else could use this, and what problems could it solve if applied somewhere entirely different?
SCAMPER: A Systematic Creativity Technique - Exaptation: look for how a tool or skill in one context could serve a different one
Ask of any existing skill, tool, or process you already use: "What else could this do that it was not designed for?"
The Adjacent Possible, Made Practical - Use morphological analysis for wicked problems with many interdependencies
The method shines on problems too complex for brainstorming to cover adequately.
Morphological Analysis, Made Practical - Habit 6: Synergize
Combine differences so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Made Practical - Reverse brainstorm: solve the opposite problem first
Ask "How would we guarantee the worst possible outcome?" — then invert every answer.
Lateral Thinking, Made Practical - Ask "Are you willing to find a solution better than either of us has thought of?"
Open the conversation with a single question that resets both parties from adversaries to co-creators.
The Third Alternative, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Adapt Existing Solution
Ask: what could be adapted or borrowed from another context, industry, or era to solve this problem?
Adapt
- Creative Problem Solving Technique
SCAMPER is a structured brainstorming checklist that prompts you to Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, and Reverse/Rearrange elements of an existing product, process, or problem. It is a practitioner-derived tool with no randomized trial evidence but a strong theoretical grounding in divergent thinking research — it works by forcing systematic exploration of an idea space that unguided brainstorming leaves partially uncovered.
- Inventive Problem Solving
Determine whether your problem is already solved elsewhere before investing in original invention.
Calibrate whether the problem requires invention or just search
- Repurpose Skills Innovation
Ask of any existing skill, tool, or process you already use: "What else could this do that it was not designed for?"
Exaptation: look for how a tool or skill in one context could serve a different one
- Scamper Adapt
SCAMPER is a structured brainstorming checklist that prompts you to Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, and Reverse/Rearrange elements of an existing product, process, or problem. It is a practitioner-derived tool with no randomized trial evidence but a strong theoretical grounding in divergent thinking research — it works by forcing systematic exploration of an idea space that unguided brainstorming leaves partially uncovered.
- Scamper Brainstorming
SCAMPER is a structured brainstorming checklist that prompts you to Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/Magnify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, and Reverse/Rearrange elements of an existing product, process, or problem. It is a practitioner-derived tool with no randomized trial evidence but a strong theoretical grounding in divergent thinking research — it works by forcing systematic exploration of an idea space that unguided brainstorming leaves partially uncovered.
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.