How Now Wow Matrix Template
Brainstorm and organize ideas based on their originality and ease of implementation.
Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies
About the How Now Wow matrix template
What is How Now Wow?
Brainstorming is difficult — but it becomes increasingly difficult as you scale. As you release more and more innovative products and services, it’s harder for your team to get creative. Complicated workflows, hard judgment calls, and resource constraints often force you to be conservative when you’d rather take risks. To overcome this challenge and reinvigorate your team, you can use the How Now Wow matrix.
The How Now Wow matrix is a game that fosters creativity. It consists of a 2x2 matrix with “originality” on the X-axis and “feasibility” on the Y-axis. You work with your team to file your ideas into each category. Working through the matrix can empower you to overcome creative roadblocks.
How do you use the How Now Wow matrix?
The horizontal axis represents originality and rates ideas as normal or innovative. The vertical axis represents ease of implementation and rates ideas as easy or difficult to implement. Ideas that are unoriginal and challenging probably aren’t worth pursuing. “How” ideas that are innovative but difficult to execute may need further work before you can act upon them. “Now” ideas are generally considered low-hanging fruit. “Wow” ideas are both innovative and relatively easy to implement, so this is where you’ll want to try to focus your attention.
The 3 Aspects of How Now Wow
How: Difficult to implement.
This category consists of ideas that are innovative but infeasible. It’s a helpful way to set ambitious goals for the future.
Now: Easy to implement.
These ideas are familiar, so you know they work well.
Wow: Original and easy to implement.
This category describes creative ideas that are relatively simple to execute. Try to file as many ideas into this category as possible.
Who can use the How Now Wow matrix?
The How Now Wow matrix is versatile enough to be used by any number of teams. Use it whenever you’d like to encourage your team to do creative brainstorming. In order to encourage maximum creativity, you may find it beneficial to break teams into smaller groups or let people brainstorm individually before sharing their ideas with a larger group.
Get started with this template right now.
Project Scope Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Decision Making, Project Planning
A project scope helps you plan and confirm your project’s goals, deliverables, features, functions, tasks, costs, and deadlines. A project manager and team should develop a project scope as early as possible, as it will directly influence both the schedule and cost of a project as it progresses. Though project scopes will vary depending on your team and objectives, they generally include goals, requirements, major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints. Aim to include the whole team when you create a project scope to ensure everyone is aligned on responsibilities and deadlines.
Pros and Cons List Template
Works best for:
Decision Making, Documentation, Strategic Planning
A pros and cons list is a simple but powerful decision-making tool used to help understand both sides of an argument. Pros are listed as arguments in favor of making a particular decision or action. Cons are listed arguments against it. By creating a list that details both sides of the argument, it becomes easier to visualize the potential impact of your decision. To make your pros and cons list even more objective, it can help to weight each pro and con against the others. You can then present your decision with confidence, making a strong argument for why it’s the right one.
Card Sorting Template
Works best for:
Desk Research, UX Design, Brainstorming
Card sorting is a brainstorming technique typically used by design teams but applicable to any brainstorm or team. The method is designed to facilitate more efficient and creative brainstorms. In a card sorting exercise, you and your team create groups out of content, objects, or ideas. You begin by labeling a deck of cards with information related to the topic of the brainstorm. Working as a group or individuals, you then sort the cards in a way that makes sense to you, then label each group with a short description. Card sorting allows you to form unexpected but meaningful connections between ideas.
3 Horizons of Growth Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Strategic Planning, Project Planning
Featured in The Alchemy of Growth, this model gives ambitious companies a way to balance the present and the future—in other words, what’s working in the existing business and what emerging, possibly-profitable growth opportunities lie ahead. Then teams across the organization can make sure that their projects map to and support the organization’s goals. The 3 Horizons of Growth model is also a powerful way to foster a culture of innovation—one that values and depends on experimentation and iteration—and to identify opportunities for new business.
Brainwriting Template
Works best for:
Education, Ideation, Brainstorming
Brainstorming is such a big part of ideation. But not everyone does their best work out loud and on the spot, yelling out thoughts and building on others’ ideas. Brainwriting is a brilliant solution for them—creative thinkers who happen to be more introverted. This approach and template invites participants to reflect quietly and write out their ideas, and then pass them to someone else who will read the idea and add to it. So you’ll get creative ideas from everyone—not just the loudest few.
Storyboard Template
Works best for:
Design Thinking
While storyboard is typically associated with planning out scenes for a movie or TV show, it’s been widely adopted throughout the business world. A storyboard is a sequence of illustrations that are used to develop a story. You can use the Storyboarding template anytime you’d like to really put yourself in a customer or user’s position and understand how they think, feel, and act. This tactic can be especially useful when you know there’s a problem or inefficiency with an existing process. You can storyboard existing processes or workflows and plan how you would like them to look in the future.