What, So What, Now What

A structure for making sense of an experience a group shares, with three questions in a fixed order. What? is about the facts: what did we see, hear and do? So what? is about meaning: what stands out, and why does it matter? Now what? is about the next step. Every question is answered alone first, then in a group, then with the class. It is one of the Liberating Structures.

With the default settings the whole structure takes ± 30 minutes: 3 rounds, briefing and look-back included.

Each question is a round of eight minutes: one minute alone, four in the group and three with the class. Before the first one there are two more minutes to form the groups. You set every step yourself, in steps of thirty seconds, and that time holds for all three questions. The player only moves on when you click.

When groups share with the class, one group names one point. If another group wrote down the same point, it shouts “Bingo!”. Then anyone names the next point, popcorn style. The whole class hears which points are shared, without every group repeating everything. On Now what? the step with the most bingos is the class's step. Prefer it calmer? Set the bingo to “in turns” in the preparation under More settings.

Because otherwise the fastest or loudest one opens the group and the rest follow. In a silent minute everyone gets two or three points on paper before the talking starts, and in the group you share in turns. That way the point of whoever never starts by themselves reaches the table too.

What? asks what you noticed: “we waited ten minutes for the materials”, “the measurement was off twice”. So what? asks what that means: “we started the experiment late”, “our setup was not stable enough”. Mixing the two means explaining before you have looked properly. That is why the first question's slide says: facts only, no explanations yet.

A step you could see happen, not an intention. “Plan better” is an intention; “at the next practical one person per group reads the instructions aloud first” is a step. When the answer is vague, ask: how will we see tomorrow that we are doing it? Write the step with the most bingos on the board, and come back to it later.

Both go from one person to the whole group. Snowball funnels ideas on one question: from everyone alone to pairs, fours and the class. What, So What, Now What asks three questions in a row about one experience, and every question goes from alone to group to class. Looking for ideas? Take Snowball. Want an experience to land in a next step? Take this one.

Yes, and that is where it is used a lot: after a training day, a lesson visit, a project or the first term. Now what? then becomes an agreement everyone heard. At a parent evening, or in a room where nobody likes to shout, choose “in turns” instead of bingo in the preparation.

Before you start: name the experience and agree the bingo. On What?: walk round, and when you hear a judgement ask: what did you actually see? In the group: in turns, one point at a time. With the class: write the points briefly on the board, one column per question, and only click on when the shouting dies down. On Now what?: keep asking until the step is something you could see happen, and come back to it later.

The three questions go back to Terry Borton, who described them in 1970 in Reach, Touch, and Teach. Gary Rolfe, Dawn Freshwater and Melanie Jasper later turned them into a well-known reflection model for healthcare and education. As What, So What, Now What it is one of the Liberating Structures by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless. The bingo when sharing with the class is something we saw at The Liberators' meetups. The LudensFlow version runs every question through the same three steps, alone, in the group and with the class, and the player waits for you.