Whenever we use Liberating Structures in teams, organizations, or a public community, we also use a wide variety of supporting material. For example, illustrations and posters. An illustration can be a powerful instrument to help people learn. In the past years, we created many of them together with Thea Schukken. This illustration is a nice example.
How does this help your team?
‘What, So What, Now What’ - created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless - is a foundational Liberating Structure that helps by asking us to step back and consider what is going on. It structures our thinking by breaking our experience down into three steps:
- “What do we notice?”
- “So, what does this mean?”
- “Now, where do go from here?”
It takes inspiration from the Ladder of Inference by Chris Argyris, an expert on learning in organizations.
By doing this with others, we are encouraged to discover the gaps in our understanding by learning from their perspectives. Being a fairly simple structure, you can easily adapt it to suit the needs of the situation. And the more you do it, the more natural this structured approach to sense-making becomes. Download the poster and use it as guidance for "What, So What, Now What".
What do you receive?
- A large PDF with the "Ladder of Inference", ready for printing and sharing;
Good combinations
- A deck of Liberating Structures Design Cards - Extended Edition
- A deck of Liberating Structures Visual Design Cards
For more inspiration...
- Check our series of posts on the individual Liberating Structures
- Try our DIY workshops that help teams use Liberating Structures
- Join our user group: The Liberators Network