The 3 Most Powerful Words to Improve Your Agile Results

There are three key words (from Human Centered Design (HCD) and “design thinking") that will have a profound benefit if you incorporate them into your Agile practices. These "Agile power words" are so deceptively simple that, at first, it might seem impossible they could make such a massive difference; but they can.

Used together in a specific sequence, these three words form a powerful question…

“HOW MIGHT WE…?” 

(As shorthand for “How might we…?” let’s call these “HMW questions.”)

Here’s how to use HMW questions and why they work so well...

Step 1: Think of a problem or challenge. For example, let’s say you want to come up with ideas on how to improve the quality of your software (i.e. reduce defects and bugs).

Step 2: Rephrase and re-frame the issue as a “How might we…?”  question. For example, ask the team something like “How might we... write bug-free code while maintaining our speed-to-delivery?”

Step 3: After you’ve come up with one (or a few) really good HMW questions, begin brainstorming with your team. First have the group generate as many ideas as possible and then try to zero in on the best ideas.

Pro tip: You might find it helpful to use sticky notes or an online tool like MURAL to literally get all the ideas up on the board. Also, in the spirit of “there are no bad ideas,” you should encourage the team to go for quantity over quality. 

Yup, it’s just that easy. But you’ll be surprised by how effective this is. 

This technique works even better if you ask HMW questions in a thought-provoking way that spurs out of the box thinking with a BIG “stretch goal”. By the way, a “stretch goal” is something that cannot be achieved with only incremental or small improvements, but instead requires a totally radical new way of approaching the problem. It’s also great if the language you use in your HMW question is purposefully colorful, visual, and overly exaggerated. 

Here are a few examples of provocative HMW questions…

• “How might we… make our product more fun to use than spending the day at Disneyland?”
• “How might we… delight our customers so much that they love us more than the Cookie Monster loves cookies?”
• “How might we… triple the sales of our leading product within one year?”

Here is an example of a HMW question that’s more relevant to Agile / Scrum: “How might we… increase the sprint velocity of the team to be faster than a Ferrari?” (Or if you prefer to use numerical targets instead of a colorful metaphor, then you could phrase your HMW question to be something like this: “HMW… increase the sprint velocity of the team by 1000%?”)

There are a few tricks you can use to make sure your HMW questions are effective:

• HMW questions should not be too broad or vague. Your goal is to encourage the team to come up with a wide range of ideas, but you also want the potential solutions to be specific enough to be actionable. For example, “How can we be more Agile?” is probably too broad and may generate loosey goosey ideas and solutions that you can’t actually implement.  
• Conversely, don’t make your HMW questions too narrow or limiting. If you want BIG, BOLD ideas, then you don’t want your HMW questions to imply a specific approach. For example, if your goal is to improve team speed and quality, then asking “How might we write our user stories in Jira better?” might be too specific for your purposes.  
• In essence, shoot for HMW questions that aim at the heart of the challenge you’re trying to solve for. They should not be too vague, nor too restrictive. 

The Stanford’s d.school suggests a variety of other ways to super-charge your HMW questions:

• Accentuate the good: “HMW make the interface so intuitive that even a baby can use it?”
• Get rid of the bad: “HMW create software with zero defects?”
• Use opposites: “HMW turn our biggest critics into fans?”
• Question assumptions: “HMW remove the need for people to call the help desk when they need technical support?”
• Use contrasting adjectives: “HMW we make Scrum events energizing instead of soul crushing?”
• Leverage resources: “HMW use free public APIs and open source resources to enhance our product?”
• Use a colorful analogy: “HMW make our sprint reviews feel like a 1999 New Year’s Eve party or celebration?”
• Challenge the status quo: “HMW make wait time (i.e. waiting) fun for our customers?”
• Ask HMW questions from different points of view and for specific personas: “HMW delight our Gen Z end-users when they use our mobile app?” “HMW we win the undying support of senior management?” HMW satisfy disgruntled customers / stakeholders when we make a big boo boo (e.g. have an outage, encounter a bug, etc.)?

OK, you might be thinking to yourself… “Self, HMW questions are an awesome idea, but how do I incorporate them into my Agile practices exactly?”

Below are some specific suggestions…

Sprint Retrospective:

Are your retrospectives getting stale, boring, or repetitive? Perhaps you’re only getting marginal results? Then try using a HMW question (or a few of them) to encourage the team to come up with some really creative improvement ideas. For example, “How might we... solve the biggest problem that is causing us the most grief right now?” Or “HMW we double our velocity next sprint?”

Daily Stand-up / Scrum:

Add an interesting twist to your daily stand-ups by introducing HMW questions. For example, next time you encounter a blocked story, rather than going right into your standard tool kit of solutions, consider challenging the team to think differently by re-framing the issue as a HMW question. 

You might want to try using some of the questions below at your next daily stand-up / scrum:

• “HMW get all of our stories unblocked?”
• “HMW best collaborate as a team so that we can get the most stories 100% done today?
• “HMW achieve our sprint goal a few days ahead of schedule?”

Sprint Planning:

Here are a few questions you might try during your next sprint planning meeting:

• “HMW get everything that we’re planning (for this sprint) 100% done (including ALL testing, documentation, approvals, etc.) BEFORE the end of the sprint?” 
• “HMW get rid of our technical debt during this sprint?”
• “HMW improve our collective skills the most during this sprint?” (for example, by doing more cross-training)
• “HMW maximize our team transparency and collaboration during the sprint?”

In closing… “How might we use HMW questions to make the team as agile as a cheetah hunting its prey on the plains of the Serengeti?” One answer to this question is to combine the best practices from Human Centered Design and Agile. 

There's a lot of great ideas out there. Don't be afraid to experiment. Because there's nothing more Agile than experimentation (i.e. inspection and adaptation).