Nine Whys: shared purpose

A structure for pairs to find the purpose behind shared work. A asks B nine times "why is this important to you?", each time about the answer B has just given. Then the roles swap: B asks, A talks, and A starts again at the beginning. At the end every pair says in one sentence which deeper purpose surfaced. What comes back from more than one pair is what the group shares. It is one of the Liberating Structures, and the name comes from there.

With the default settings the whole structure takes ± 17 minutes: 2 rounds, briefing and look-back included.

With the default settings about seventeen minutes. Each direction starts with forty-five seconds to take the roles, followed by nine questions of thirty seconds: just over five minutes per direction, ten and a half for both. The sharing at the end takes three minutes. That is thirteen and a half minutes of steps; the preparation adds a minute for forming the pairs and two minutes of reflection at the end. With seven whys it takes about fifteen minutes, with twelve about twenty. You set the roles, the questions and the sharing yourself, each in steps of fifteen seconds (one setting covers all the whys), and the player moves on to the next question by itself.

No. Nine is the name of the structure, and in the preparation you choose between three and twelve. In a short lesson seven questions work too; the question stays the same. Do count on the first answers almost always being about the task and the result, and on the interesting part only starting once those run out. With far fewer than five questions you often stop right at that point.

That is the moment the whole structure hinges on. Around the third or fourth why it usually gets uncomfortable: the obvious answer has run out, and something more genuine has to come. Do not step in there. A short answer simply gets another why, and "I don't know" is fine too: then A waits a moment and asks the same question again. Half-formed thoughts count. What A does not do is finish the answer for B.

A good theme is something the pairs actually work on or deal with themselves, not an abstract concept: "our project about the neighbourhood", "the school play", "why we teach this subject", not "sustainability" or "democracy". It stays on the screen for the whole structure, the same in both directions. You can also leave the field empty; then every pair takes their own work, and that is not a lesser version. No theme in mind? Choose "AI writes them" in the preparation: you get a few possible themes for your subject or project and tap one. If you prefer your own assistant, such as Microsoft Copilot, copy the request from the same screen.

Because it is a conversation, and because A's attention has to be on B. Anyone who is writing is only half listening, and an asker who takes notes starts summarising instead of asking further. Only one sentence needs keeping: the purpose that surfaced, and the pair says it out loud in the sharing. If you want to make those sentences visible, have them written on a sticky note at the end.

The pairs have finished both directions. Every pair says in one sentence which deeper purpose surfaced: the purpose, not the whole conversation. You listen for what comes back from more than one pair, and then ask the group what it heard. What you hear twice is the shared purpose. It is the harvest of the structure, and that is why this step takes three minutes and not thirty seconds.

The same ladder, the other way. Five Whys digs down, to the cause of a problem: why does this happen? The pair writes the chain together on one sheet. Nine Whys climbs up, to a purpose: why is this important to you? One asks, the other talks, and nothing is written down. Looking for a cause, take Five Whys; looking for what drives people, take Nine Whys.

Beforehand: choose a theme or leave the field empty, and say out loud what A's role is: asking, nine times, and nothing else. Model it once if you like. During the questions: walk around without stepping in, especially around the third or fourth why, when it goes quiet. At the swap: remind the class that the new conversation starts at the beginning. In the sharing: one sentence per pair, and listen for what comes back; then ask the group what it heard, instead of drawing the conclusion yourself.

Yes. Nine Whys is one of the Liberating Structures by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless: short structures with tight steps, in which everyone takes part instead of only the fastest speaker. The LudensFlow version keeps the question, the swap of roles and the sharing with the group, and turns it into a classroom structure: every why is its own step with its own clock, so the class sees which question it is on. What drops out: the minute in which everyone first writes down on their own what they do, the short title the asker notes for the other's purpose, and the in-between round in fours. Here nothing is written down, and the pairs share straight away with the whole group.