Statement starters template

The statement starters template is great for giving your team a structured way to reframe problems into open-ended prompts that invite exploration instead of jumping head-first into solutions. Rooted in problem framing methodology, statement starters are phrases designed to broaden how you think about a challenge. Rather than prescribing a fix, they encourage your team to consider multiple directions before committing to one.

What you end up with is richer discussions, fewer blind spots, and solutions that actually address the root issue. A common example of a statement starter is a “How Might We” question, which turns a challenge into an invitation for creative problem-solving. This template, built on the LUMA System of human-centered design, provides the structure to run this process with any team, on any problem.

What is a statement starters template?

A statement starters template is a collaborative workspace that guides teams through the process of rephrasing problems as open-ended prompts. Instead of you or your team accepting a challenge at face value, the method asks you to rewrite it in ways that invite broader thinking.

The concept comes from LUMA Institute’s Statement Starters method, one of 36 human-centered design methods in the LUMA System. It sits within the Understanding category under Problem Framing, alongside techniques like Abstraction Laddering and Problem Tree Analysis. Teams in workshops, design sprints, and strategy sessions use statement starters to make sure they’re solving the right problem before generating solutions.

So let’s look at the difference in practice. A prescriptive statement like “We need a device to help people listen to music” already contains an embedded solution. A statement starter converts that same challenge into something like “How might we help people listen to music?” This tiny shift opens the door to solutions the original framing would have excluded entirely.

Key features of the statement starters template

Mural’s statement starters template comes pre-built with the structure and prompts you need to move from a raw challenge to a well-framed problem. Here’s what’s included:

• A dedicated problem definition area where your team writes the challenge or opportunity you’re tackling, so everyone starts from the same understanding.
• Reframing prompts that guide participants toward open-ended rewrites of the original problem, helping avoid solution bias from the start.
• Variation zones for generating multiple reframes of the same problem side by side, so your team can compare angles and find the strongest direction.
• A collaboration canvas with sticky notes, comments, and real-time editing that lets every participant contribute, whether the session is live or asynchronous.
• Grouping and refinement tools to cluster related ideas, vote on the strongest reframes, and narrow down to the prompts that will drive your next round of ideation.

The statement starters template helps you:

• Kickstart productive discussions with your team by giving everyone a clear prompt to respond to, instead of a blank page.
• Encourage thinking outside the box when your team defaults to familiar solutions that haven’t worked before.
• Challenge assumptions and biases baked into the original problem statement, which often limit the range of solutions your team considers.
• Explore multiple approaches to a problem in parallel, comparing reframes side by side before committing to a direction.
• Reframe challenges into opportunities by converting prescriptive statements into open-ended prompts that invite creativity.
• Discover solutions to complex problems that would have stayed hidden under a narrower framing.

Problem framing is the step that determines whether your ideation session produces real results.

How to use the statement starters template

Follow these five steps to run a statement starters session with your team. The process works for in-person workshops, remote sessions, and hybrid setups.

Step 1: Define the problem or opportunity

Write the challenge your team is facing in one or two sentences. Keep it clear and concise, and avoid embedding a solution in the statement itself. For example, “Our onboarding process takes too long” is better than “We need to build a shorter onboarding video.” The first version leaves room for exploration, while the second has already decided on the answer.

Step 2: Invite diverse perspectives

Bring in cross-functional stakeholders who see the problem from different angles. Product managers, designers, customer-facing reps, and engineers will each read the same challenge differently. That diversity is the raw material for strong reframes. Mural’s real-time collaboration makes it easy to include remote participants without losing the energy of the session.

Step 3: Reframe the problem using statement starters

Have each participant rewrite the original challenge as a series of open-ended prompts. The most common format is a “How Might We” question, but other patterns work too: “What if we…”, “In what ways could we…”, or “Imagine a world where…” The goal is to strip out embedded solutions and keep the prompt exploratory.

For example, “We feel burdened by the maintenance of our current products” could become “How might we maintain products without it feeling like a burden?” or “What if product maintenance happened automatically during everyday work?”

Step 4: Explore and refine statements

Once the team has generated a batch of reframes, compare them. Which ones open up the most interesting territory? Which ones feel too narrow or too broad? Use Mural’s voting and clustering features to surface the strongest prompts and group related reframes by theme.

Step 5: Use statements to guide ideation

Take your top reframes and use them as the starting prompts for a brainstorming session. Each statement starter becomes a launchpad for generating ideas. Because the prompts are open-ended, your team will naturally produce a wider range of solutions than if you’d started with a prescriptive problem statement.

When to use the statement starters template (with examples)

Statement starters work best when a problem is complex, ambiguous, or when your team has been stuck cycling through the same ideas. Here are some common scenarios:

In problem framing workshops, dedicate a full session to reframing before any ideation begins. Teams that separate framing from brainstorming consistently produce stronger outcomes.

During early-stage product discovery, statement starters help you avoid committing to a solution before you’ve fully understood the opportunity. When you’re still figuring out what to build, broadening the prompt is more valuable than narrowing the scope too soon.

In innovation and strategy sessions, reframing strategic challenges as invitations for exploration can break your team out of incremental thinking. This is particularly useful for annual planning and OKR workshops where teams default to the same categories year after year.

For UX and customer experience challenges, try converting pain points into design prompts. Instead of “Fix the checkout flow,” reframe it as “How might we make purchasing feel effortless?” The second version opens the door to solutions the first one wouldn’t.

Team alignment sessions benefit from statement starters because when cross-functional teams disagree on priorities, reframing the problem often reveals that different groups are solving for different versions of the same issue.

And for complex or ambiguous problems where you can’t even agree on what the problem is, statement starters force clarity by requiring everyone to articulate the challenge in their own words.

You can also pair statement starters with other LUMA methods. Use Abstraction Laddering to zoom in or out on a problem’s scope before reframing it, or follow up with a Creative Matrix to generate solutions against your strongest prompts.

Tips for running a statement starters workshop

Getting the most out of the statement starters template comes down to facilitation. Here are practical tips based on how teams actually use this method:

Start with a clear, concise problem statement

If your starting point is vague, every reframe will be vague too. Spend the first five minutes getting the original challenge down to one or two tight sentences.

Encourage quantity before quality

Ask each person to generate at least five reframes before the group discusses any of them. Quantity creates the raw material; refinement comes later.

Keep prompts open-ended

If a reframe still contains a specific solution (“How might we build an app that…”), it’s not open enough. Coach participants to remove embedded answers.

Don’t jump to solutions

The hardest part of this method is staying in the framing phase. Resist the urge to start ideating until you’ve selected your strongest prompts.

Use private mode to reduce groupthink

Mural’s Facilitation Superpowers® include private mode, which lets everyone write independently before seeing other people’s reframes. This is especially important for statement starters, where early anchoring can limit the range of perspectives.

Group ideas by theme

After generating reframes, cluster them into themes. You’ll often find that several people reframed the problem in similar ways, which signals a promising direction worth exploring.

Statement starters are one of the most accessible problem framing techniques in the LUMA System, and they pair well with nearly every ideation method that follows. Whether you’re kicking off a design sprint or recalibrating a quarterly strategy, this template gives your team the structure to ask better questions before chasing answers.