How Might We Use A Creative Matrix?

TL;DR The creative matrix is an immediate go-to when you need to understand how to rapidly ideate new possible solutions, improvements to a service or product, or anything in-between. This exercise helps us to diverge from the current way of thinking by making solution generation fun and insightful.

  • Using “how might we…” statements in this exercise can help to generate solutions and consider other resources. 
  • Start by writing How Might We (HMW) statements, using 3- 4 HMW prompts.
  • Next, you can propose solutions as they relate to each enabler (e.g., technology) and write them down.
  • You can use this exercise with any team to explore and diverge from existing thinking into new possibilities.
  • Use this method to turn challenges into opportunities, and have fun getting creative!

Jump right into the Miro Template


The creative matrix is an immediate go-to when you need to understand how to rapidly ideate new possible solutions, improvements, or analysis. A good place to use this exercise is when you haven't thought about how to rapidly prototype, explore, ideate, or ultimately diverge from your current way of thinking. When you know some of the resources and you have an idea of what some of the constraints you can begin this exercise.

Getting Started

    The first element to think about is generating "how might we" statements (or HMW, for short).
    Your own "how might we" statement can be broad-reaching, or very specific to a product or experience that you currently have. Once you've built out your "how might we" section, you'll want to move on to constraints.

    Resources, or our constraints, are essentially our ingredients that we are going to mix together. Things like partnerships and technology are a broad way of describing a resource, tool, or any factor or asset that we might be able to leverage to answer the question. Using our HMW statements and constraints, we can begin to generate a variety of potential solutions through our Miro post-it notes.

    The idea behind a creative matrix is to ultimately think about all of the "how might we" statements we have and the resources that we believe are most available to us now. It may make sense to include a very broad range of resources, technology, people, partnerships, etc. but it might make sense to choose an enabler that doesn't necessarily have a very broad definition. Instead, it might make sense to include an enabler that's quite specific.


    Extra Options

    In addition to choosing different topics for different enablers and different granularity, you can also choose and label each one of these creative matrix with different time series or time lapse dates this allows you to understand what resources enablers were available to you at the time. You can also then look at how those enablers, constraints or HMW questions have evolved over time.

    Jump right into the Miro Template


    Final Thoughts

    When pairing the "how might we" section with your constraints, you can begin to start to understand interesting new or existing ideas through products or services that might present an answer to the question or problem. It's important to realize that your creative matrix can also be evolved over time through a variety of lenses, people, enablers, technology etc. That's why we have four separate tablets that you can leverage and edit on the Miro board! Play with different options to get your ideas out and diverge from your regular thinking pattern

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    Adam Paulisick

    Founder at SKILLBUILDER & maadlabs.io (fmr @BCG @Nielsen — acquired 3x). Prof @teppercmu, MHCI & exec ed at Gates School of Comp Sci. Founder @TheShopPgh

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