Reflacto

ENDE
All reflection methods

What? So What? Now What?

Experience alone does not guarantee learning. This method separates description from interpretation, draws out what the experience means, and turns that learning into a deliberate future action.

  • Concrete experience
  • Meaning and learning
  • Future action

What is the What? So What? Now What? method?

This three-stage reflective model helps you describe a concrete experience, examine what it means, and turn the learning into a deliberate future action. Reflacto separates parts of the stages into additional prompts while preserving the three-step structure.

  1. What?

    Describe the context, observable events, outcome, and your own response. Keep facts, thoughts, and feelings distinct.

  2. So What?

    Examine assumptions, consequences, patterns, and alternative perspectives. Condense the analysis into one specific learning.

  3. Now What?

    Choose one concrete behavior or small experiment for a similar future situation.

Worked example

A team lead reflects on a project-planning meeting in which important risks surfaced too late.

  1. What?

    In Monday’s planning meeting, I presented a timeline before asking about important constraints. Two risks surfaced only after we had agreed on the plan. I felt under time pressure and interpreted the room’s silence as agreement.

  2. So What?

    My urgency narrowed the discussion. Silence did not necessarily mean agreement; the team needed a clearer invitation to contribute its knowledge. My key learning is to surface constraints before proposing a plan.

  3. Now What?

    In Thursday’s alignment meeting, I will ask each area for one important constraint before proposing a timeline. I will then give everyone two minutes for a silent review.

Illustrative example: The same experience may reasonably lead to different interpretations and next steps.

When this method helps

Use it after a concrete event, conversation or decision that surprised you, stayed with you, or produced an outcome you want to understand and handle differently next time.

Limits and when to pause

Its simplicity can keep reflection superficial. Use specific evidence and alternative perspectives in the So What stage, and do not use solo reflection in place of feedback, investigation or qualified support where harm, safety, discrimination or serious conflict is involved.

Where Reflacto uses this method

Choose the situation you want to reflect on:

Key benefits

  • Separates observable events from the meaning you assigned to them
  • Makes assumptions, patterns and alternative perspectives easier to examine
  • Condenses reflection into a learning you can carry into similar situations
  • Ends with a specific behavior or experiment instead of a vague intention

Questions Reflacto asks

Reflacto turns the method into these concrete reflection questions:

  1. 1What happened? Describe the situation and its outcome as concretely as possible.
  2. 2What were you thinking and feeling, and how did you respond?
  3. 3So what? Why does this experience matter, and how do you now make sense of it?
  4. 4What is the most important thing you learned from this experience?
  5. 5Now what? What will you do differently in a similar situation?

Common questions about What? So What? Now What?

How is this different from GROW?

GROW begins with a goal and helps you find a path forward from the current reality. What? So What? Now What? begins with an experience that has already happened and asks what you can learn from it. Choose GROW when you need to solve a problem; choose this method when you need to understand an experience before deciding how it should change your practice.

What belongs in the What stage?

Context, observable events, your role, other people involved, and the outcome. Thoughts and feelings also matter, but mark them as your internal response rather than as facts about somebody else's intent. The discipline of this stage is description before explanation.

How do I keep So What from becoming rumination?

Move from replaying the event to testing meaning. Ask which assumption shaped your response, what another participant might have seen, what consequence followed, and what pattern this resembles. If a thought produces neither a clearer explanation nor a useful learning, it probably does not need another loop.

What makes a useful Now What?

A useful next step names a behavior, a situation in which you will try it, and evidence you can observe. ‘Communicate better’ is an intention; ‘in Thursday's planning meeting, ask each function for one constraint before proposing a timeline’ is an experiment you can review.

Origin and Reflacto's adaptation

Terry Borton introduced the three questions in his 1970 book Reach, Touch, and Teach. John Driscoll later developed them into a model for reflective practice, and other authors have published further adaptations.

Also known as: Borton reflective model, Driscoll model of reflection, The three Ws

What Reflacto changed

Reflacto turns the three stages into five prompts: the observable experience, the reflector’s own response, the meaning of the event, one distilled learning, and a concrete future action. The separate response and learning prompts are scaffolding added by Reflacto.

Primary sources and further reading

Editorially reviewed by Daniel Schmeiß

Last substantive review: August 23, 2026

Related reflection methods

Compare another method that approaches a similar situation from a different angle.

Compare all methods