Qualiteg Selection, Idea Deep-Dive #2: How to Use 6W2H

Hello to everyone visiting the Qualiteg blog—I'm Michele. Working on AI-driven new businesses and marketing, I often receive questions from clients. Through this blog, I would like to offer my own answers to the challenges that anyone considering an AI-powered business is likely to face.

Today's theme is 6W2H

Qualiteg Selection is a series that introduces tips and tools for improving user experience (UX). This time, we introduce how to use 6W2H, a technique for digging into ideas until they become concrete and actionable.

Delivering an excellent UX requires deeply understanding user needs and providing services and products that satisfy them. To do that, you need to examine ideas thoroughly at the idea stage and clarify their feasibility and challenges.

In this article, we take a detailed look at 6W2H, an extremely useful tool for digging deeper into ideas.

What Is 6W2H?

6W2H is a powerful framework for problem solving and situation analysis. It consists of the following eight questions:

1. Who
2. What
3. When
4. Where
5. Why
6. How
7. How much
8. How many

By working through these questions, you can get to the heart of an idea or a problem.

(It may bring back memories of your early English grammar lessons.)

How to Use 6W2H

1. Making ideas concrete
   When a new idea comes to mind, try applying the 6W2H questions one by one. For example, take the idea of "starting an online cooking class":
   • Who: Who will teach? Who will attend?
   • What: What kind of dishes will be taught?
   • When: When will classes be held? How often?
   • Where: Which platform will be used?
   • Why: Why is an online cooking class needed?
   • How: How will the classes be run?
   • How much: How much will tuition be?
   • How many: How many attendees per class?
2. Surfacing problems
   6W2H is also effective for finding problems in existing projects and products. Answering each question can surface issues you had overlooked.
3. Planning
   When planning a new project, using 6W2H helps you build a thorough plan with nothing left out.
4. Gathering information
   When conducting surveys or research, keeping 6W2H in mind ensures you collect all the information you need.
5. Structuring presentations
   Structuring a presentation around 6W2H helps you convey information to your audience in an easy-to-follow way.

Innovation-Cross, from Qualiteg Inc., is a co-creation support program that brings clarity to the innovation process. Our approach consists of four steps: first, we thoroughly analyze your company's current state; next, we formulate a strategy for creating value through external collaboration; then we define a concrete roadmap and KPIs; and finally, we provide strong support through execution.

Through a rich menu of services—idea workshops, hackathon planning, AI technology adoption, and more—we reliably advance each stage of innovation. Our experienced consultants work alongside you, charting a clear path to achieving through external collaboration the innovation that is "hard to achieve in-house alone."

Tips for Using 6W2H

Don't be too rigid about the order of the questions

• Use the questions in whatever order best fits the situation. As a facilitator, it is tempting to fill in the sheet in order as you go, but with so many ideas coming from everyone, please facilitate with the flexibility to fill in the sheet in whatever order the ideas arrive.

Dig deeper

• For each question, layering on further "why?" questions leads to a more fundamental understanding. It may feel a little awkward at first, but once the room warms up, other members will start asking "why?" of whoever is speaking. So to get things going, don't hesitate to keep asking "why?" yourself.

Use it as a team

• Applying 6W2H from multiple viewpoints enables a more multifaceted analysis. Once everyone gets used to the "why, why" of deep-diving, the mood can shift to something almost affectionate—people realize they are not being grilled, but that their colleagues are deliberately sparring with them to help them deepen their own thinking. Please facilitate with that kind of atmosphere as your goal.

A Practical Example: Using 6W2H in New Product Development

Let's look at an example of applying 6W2H to actual new product development. Suppose we are considering developing a "smart toothbrush."

1. Who:
   • Users: busy professionals, people interested in technology
   • Developers: our engineering and design teams
2. What:
   • An electric toothbrush that pairs with a smartphone to record and analyze brushing data
3. When:
   • Development period: one year
   • Launch timing: aligned with next year's Dental Hygiene Week
4. Where:
   • Sales channels: our online store, consumer electronics retailers, drugstores
5. Why:
   • To raise awareness of dental health
   • To help people build effective brushing habits
6. How:
   • Pairs with a smartphone app via Bluetooth
   • AI-driven analysis of brushing patterns with improvement suggestions
7. How much:
   • Retail price: 15,000 yen
   • Development budget: 50 million yen
8. How many:
   • First-year sales target: 100,000 units

As this example shows, 6W2H lets you comprehensively examine a wide range of aspects, from the new product's concept all the way to a concrete development plan.

If you are new to planning work, you may struggle to get your point across, or find that what you say out loud differs completely from what is written in your materials. Before your manager starts poking holes in your plan, try using this framework to spar with yourself first. (If you are interested, Michele is also available for spot sparring sessions starting from one hour—please reach out via our contact form.)

Caveats When Using 6W2H

1. Avoid excessive detail:
   In the early stages, focus on setting the broad direction and avoid getting bogged down in details.
2. Stay flexible:
   Do not treat the answers obtained through 6W2H as absolute; it is important to revisit them as circumstances change.
3. Share with the whole team:
   Sharing the 6W2H results with all stakeholders and building a common understanding is the key to success.

If you keep hammering away with "why?" too persistently, the mood can sour—though it all comes down to how you say it. If you are facilitating, keep the gentle mindset you would use with a small child: ask "and why might that be?" rather than demanding "why!?" in an accusatory tone.

Summary

6W2H is an extremely effective tool for digging into ideas and building plans. It is just a set of simple questions, but working through them carefully allows you to develop more concrete, actionable plans.

Give 6W2H a try in your daily work and new projects. It should raise the quality of your ideas and lead to more effective problem solving and more creative thinking.

6W2H is a highly effective tool for deepening ideas and solving problems. By leveraging this simple yet powerful framework, you can generate more concrete, actionable ideas. Try 6W2H in your everyday work and projects.

Qualiteg will continue to introduce tools and methodologies that support the success of your business and projects. Stay tuned for the next installment!

Thank you very much for reading this column to the end. At Qualiteg, we provide training and consulting on AI technology and new business planning. If this has piqued your interest, or if you have specific needs, please feel free to reach out to us via the contact form here.

We also offer a popular workshop for those who want to master the steps of new business creation. The training focuses on having each participant think about the business from an executive's perspective, and it is designed not only for planners but also for their counterpart engineers, designers, and marketers.