6W2H
Answer eight planning questions to align the purpose, audience, execution, timing, place, and resource limits of an activity.
Use this eight-question worksheet when an activity sounds clear but different people interpret its purpose or arrangements differently. Who identifies the people doing the work; Whom identifies the people it serves. This project variant keeps those questions separate.
An activity brief, known arrangements, resource limits, and unanswered questions. Bring the people responsible for operations and delivery into the review.
A compact activity brief with eight explicit dimensions, remaining checks, and a next action. Missing information stays visible.
On this page
How to use it
- State one activity and the decision the brief must support. Check whether the intended audience matches the stated purpose.
- Fill Who and Whom separately, then specify What and Why. Describe any expected benefit as a hypothesis until tested.
- Record When, Where, How, and How much using the supplied times, places, units, limits, and quantities. Leave unknown details unconfirmed.
- Review dependencies with the people involved. Assign checks and deadlines before proceeding, then record actual participation and spending separately.
Keep its limits in mind
The worksheet organizes a plan; it does not confirm demand, attendance, authorization, or feasibility. A budget cap is not actual spending, and an attendance target is not a result. The eight boxes do not represent a sequence or score.
Align a weekend member event
Fictional example: Qinghe plans a weekend event at two stores. The initial brief calls it customer acquisition, but the intended audience is existing members who have not bought again in 60 days. Consent, staffing, and capacity still need confirmation; no actual attendance or spending is supplied.
On a small screen, scroll across the diagram to read it.
Audience changes the purpose: A 60-day inactivity rule selects existing members. The clarified purpose is a win-back test. It does not establish that a store experience will lead to another purchase.
Conditions precede execution: Operations checks contact consent by Thursday; managers confirm staffing, materials, and both stores' capacity by Friday. The plan mentions two store staff, but does not specify their allocation between stores. CNY 3,000 is a cap and 60 is the attendance target.
Next step: Check contact consent and confirm delivery capacity. During the event, count attendees and buyers separately; record actual spending against the cap.
When eight answers are not enough
First, pause if the activity is still several different decisions. A shop event, an ongoing membership program, and a delivery service need different boundaries. Choose one action and its preparation window. Otherwise a precise time in one box can conceal a vague promise in another. The eight questions help inspect completeness; they are not eight compulsory tasks in order.
Second, do not fill an unknown with the arrangement that seems most likely. “Two staff” leaves their allocation unresolved. “Members” does not establish permission to send a message. Keep a visible question, the person who can answer it, and the point at which proceeding depends on that answer. A completed worksheet does not grant permission.
Third, use another method when the decision needs a causal explanation or a choice between alternatives. Why records the purpose and its basis here; it does not establish a root cause by asking the same question repeatedly. How much must preserve the distinction between money, people, quantities, estimates, caps, and actual expenditure.
Match the next question to the available material
Choose according to the decision you need now. These methods can use related notes, but each produces a different kind of output. Carry unresolved conditions forward instead of assuming that moving to another diagram resolves them.
| Material and question | Method | Output and limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Scattered arrangements for one activity | 6W2H | A brief and missing checks; no proof of attendance or feasibility. |
| A broad performance gap with competing requests | Issue definition worksheet | A bounded investigation; no established explanation for the gap. |
| Named tasks and people who can confirm authority | RACI matrix | Responsibility discussion; assignments need actual agreement. |
| Feasible alternatives and explicit decision criteria | Decision matrix | Tradeoffs with reasons; judgment scores are not predicted outcomes. |
Rebuild the member-event brief from source notes
This is a worked analysis of the fictional Qinghe example above. The complete teaching packet is a CNY 3,000 budget cap; an invitation rule selecting members with no repeat purchase in 60 days; Dongjie and Xiqiao stores; Saturday 14:00–17:00; an operations coordinator; a plan for two store staff; and a target of 60 attendees. The proposed sequence is consent checking, SMS booking, in-store experience and trial, check-in, then next-day follow-up. No invitation count, allocation of staff, actual attendance, purchases, or spending is supplied.
The first correction is to the request itself. Calling this acquisition conflicts with Whom: these are existing members. Rewrite Why as a test of re-engagement, then check whether What and How can investigate that purpose. Store attendance can describe participation; it cannot by itself establish another purchase or a durable return to the shop. Do not silently change the audience to make the original headline fit.
The dependency review starts before invitations. Operations must check contact consent by Thursday. Managers must confirm the roster, materials, and both stores’ capacity by Friday. Two staff might be insufficient or arranged differently between locations; neither conclusion is supplied. Ask the managers rather than assigning one person to each store in the worksheet. A three-hour event window also says nothing about preparation or follow-up labor.
| Source note | Analysis | Check before proceeding |
|---|---|---|
| Existing members inactive for 60 days | Win-back audience, not newly acquired customers | Confirm the selection window and contact eligibility. |
| Two stores, two planned staff | Allocation and safe capacity unknown | Managers confirm each location and other duties by Friday. |
| CNY 3,000 cap; 60-attendee target | CNY 50 per target attendee is a planning quotient | Do not report it as actual cost per attendee or buyer. |
| SMS, check-in, next-day follow-up | Separate communication and participation stages | Operations checks consent by Thursday; define records and access. |
Issue a conditional brief and review actual delivery
The resulting brief can be circulated for confirmation, with unresolved consent and delivery capacity clearly blocking execution. Dividing 3,000 by 60 gives CNY 50 per target attendee only under those planning figures. Actual cost per attendee would require actual spending and an actual attendance count; if that count is zero, the ratio is undefined. The cap does not mean the team should spend all of it.
For the proposed review, retain the invitation selection rule, eligible contacts, messages sent, bookings, check-ins, buyers, and expenditure separately. Specify a purchase window before describing conversion; next-day contact is not a long-term repeat-purchase measure. Avoid collecting more member details than the review needs. No event results are available in this case.
After delivery, compare the confirmed brief with what actually happened, record deviations and unresolved questions, and decide whether another test is justified. Low attendance could reflect invitation reach, timing, capacity, or interest. The worksheet alone cannot distinguish those explanations. Reopen the relevant question instead of declaring the event successful because all eight boxes were completed.
Check your work
- The executor and audience are distinct; returning members are not labeled new customers.
- Times and locations are explicit without invented dates or time zones.
- Consent, staffing, and capacity checks are visible in the brief, rather than silently assumed.
- Budget limits, estimates, targets, and actual results retain their different meanings.
- The next action resolves a concrete unknown before the activity proceeds.
Put the framework to work
Copy the outline and add your question, evidence, and open questions.
Practice with an example
Choose a preparation route for progress, a resource or decision request, or a period review. Use one service case to inspect openings, review checks and focused guides, and keep a preparation note.
Prepare a work update: start with the purpose →