For which purposes it is used

The Five Ws and H technique allows to present the information in a complete, clear and effective way, so it can be a very useful tool to share the subject of study with the students.  It also became an approach towards problem-solving, where each Ws and H questions help us to address an issue from different angles and come up with possible solutions. As a result, it can be a very useful activity in VET, for example, by posing your students with everyday problems or situations that they will face in their professional career and having them try to solve them in a group dynamic.

In a professional context, this project methodology allows people to ask themselves the right questions to understand a particular problem and respond to it effectively rather than just jumping into solving it, without prior reflection. It also allows teams working together to share a common vision of a situation and not get sidetracked.

Hence, this simple, effective, and, most importantly, time-tested methodology can be applied in a wide range of fields, from scientific research to sales and journalism. This technique is also used in business to improve process management and, true to its origins, it is a very useful technique in the development of communication strategies (e.g. applicable to marketing or the use of social media). This tool is useful in gathering information on a given topic to better understand it. It’s also useful in developing new problem-solving approaches on a given challenge..

Some of the main utilities of this tool in your engineering lesson are the following ones:

• You can apply the Five Ws and H technique when preparing your lessons, as it is the perfect tool to deliver a message clearly to your students.
• During your lessons, you can propose this technique as to:
  • generate idea-provoking questions while developing other ideation techniques (such as brainstorming) in order to help build on existing ideas and generate further questions;
  • generate data-gathering questions in problem-solving activities;
  • as a checklist to keep in mind important topics in a discussion.
• This methodology is also often used in the analysis of projects/initiatives to evaluate, accompany and ensure that activities are executed with clarity and excellence by those involved.
• This technique is also applied in the analysis of processes and detection of problems in the classroom. Its development allows us to know what the problem is, and what its causes are, thus facilitating the search for solutions.