Project

5W2H

Seven questions — What, Why, Who, When, Where, How, How Much — for scoping a plan before it's built.

What it is

Seven boxes, answered independently then checked against each other: What, Why, Who, When, Where, How, and How Much. It extends the classic Five Ws with How and How Much, a common addition in quality-management and Lean/Six Sigma practice, and works as a lightweight consistency check on a plan rather than a discovery method in itself.

Reach for it when

• A project kickoff produces a plan that sounds complete but skips who owns it or what it costs.
• A root-cause discussion needs a basic scope check before it goes any further.
• A brief reads fine until someone asks who has time to do it by the stated deadline.

Running it

1. State the task or problem to be scoped.
2. Work through each of the seven questions in order, capturing answers as a group.
3. Flag any box the group can't answer confidently — that's a gap in the plan.
4. Review all seven answers together for consistency, then convert them into an action plan or brief.