Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill all 61 boards, so the examples tell one consistent story.
Post-PMF Fieldnote, after the activation research: the product team turns four insights into How Might We questions.
What the team took away
Two HMW carried the room. They framed the sketching session the next day; the other two went to the parking lot.
How to run it
Preparation
Invite the product team plus anyone who joined the research. Five to eight people.
Bring the insights: the top pains from the journey map, the affinity map themes, or the persona frustrations. Pin them on the left of the board.
On the board: three columns, insight, How Might We, votes. One row per insight.
Send the insights the day before so people arrive having read them, not discovering them live.
Agenda
5 min
Show the format Take one insight and rewrite it live as a HMW: 'admins abandon setup at the invite step' becomes 'how might we make inviting the team the fastest step of setup'.
15 min
Write in silence Everyone writes HMW questions for every insight, one per sticky. Aim for three per insight. No talking.
10 min
Post and read Post them under each insight. Each person reads their own aloud in one breath. No comments yet.
15 min
Sort by altitude Too broad ('how might we improve onboarding') goes up, too narrow ('how might we add a copy-link button') goes down. Rewrite the extremes to the middle.
10 min
Vote Three dots each. Then the PM picks the final 5 to 10 with the votes as input, not as verdict.
5 min
Bridge to ideation Write the selected HMWs at the top of the ideation board. Schedule the ideation session within the week.
Pitfalls
A HMW that contains the solution is not a question. If it names a feature, rewrite it around the need.
Do not skip the silent writing. Group writing produces the first loud idea, then variations of it.
Ten HMWs is the ceiling. With thirty, ideation spreads thin and nothing gets prototyped.
Afterwards
The selected HMWs open the ideation session: Crazy 8's, brainwriting, or a design sprint. Keep the full list, the ones not selected are next quarter's raw material.