Summary:
User feedback reveals desirability (what users want), but the strategy and UX designers must also ensure the features are viable (good for the business) and feasible (possible to build). The collaboration should focus on translating user desires into a plan that is strategically aligned and technically realistic, creating a shared understanding of the constraints and opportunities.

Correct Option:

C. Align design implications to business goals:
This is the most effective collaborative action. The strategy designer brings the business context (viability) and the UX designer brings the user and technical insights (feasibility). By working together to explicitly connect the proposed features to specific business goals (e.g., "This feature will increase average order value, making it viable") and assessing the technical implications, they ensure the final list of features is balanced across all three critical lenses: Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility.

Incorrect Option:

A. Co-create a journey map with users:
This is a powerful method for deepening the understanding of user needs (desirability) and pain points. However, it primarily focuses on the user perspective and does not inherently address the business case (viability) or the technical implementation costs (feasibility).

B. Identify user quotes to make the case:
This activity is useful for building empathy and proving desirability to stakeholders. However, it is a one-sided argument that only reinforces what users want. It does not constitute a collaboration that weighs those desires against business and technical constraints.

Reference:
Salesforce Trailhead, "Create a Strategy to Deliver Value": This module emphasizes that successful solutions sit at the intersection of Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability. The collaboration described in the correct answer is the practical work of ensuring a feature's design implications are explicitly aligned with business goals, thereby checking the viability box and informing the feasibility discussion.

Summary:
The specific phrasing of a challenge statement is critical for setting the team's mindset. "How Might We" (HMW) is a carefully chosen phrase that combines optimistic possibility with open-ended exploration. It is designed to foster a creative and collaborative environment, which is essential during the early stages of problem-solving before any solutions have been generated or evaluated.

Correct Option:

B. It allows the team to explore solutions without committing to one right away.
This is the primary reason. The word "might" is intentionally tentative and non-committal. It gives the team psychological safety to brainstorm a wide range of ideas, including unconventional ones, without the pressure of having to justify their immediate feasibility. It frames the work as a exploration of possibilities, not a direct path to a predetermined implementation.

Incorrect Option:

A. Marketing teams do not have the responsibility to drive design challenges:
This is incorrect. Cross-functional collaboration, including marketing, is often crucial for framing challenges that balance user needs with business goals. The HMW format is a tool for any team engaged in creative problem-solving, not just designers.

C. 'Will' assumes the problem can be solved without due diligence:
While "How will we" does sound more certain, the core issue isn't about diligence but about creativity. "Will" can feel prescriptive and narrow, implying that a solution path is already known, which shuts down divergent thinking. The problem with "will" is that it skips the generative phase, not the diligent phase.

Reference:
Salesforce Trailhead, "Frame Your Design Challenge": This module introduces the "How Might We" method and explains that its purpose is to open up the problem space for broad ideation. The phrasing is specifically designed to encourage a wide range of solutions and foster a collaborative, non-judgmental environment for brainstorming, which is essential for innovation.

Summary:
For a professional networking app, the core value is not just having an account or opening the app, but in users actively building their professional network. A metric that reflects genuine, valuable engagement is more resistant to artificial inflation and provides a truer measure of the platform's health and utility. It should measure an action that demonstrates real user intent and interaction.

Correct Option:

C. New connections made between users:
This is the most trustworthy metric for measuring genuine success. A "connection" is a mutual agreement between two users to network, representing a conscious, valuable action that builds the social graph. It is very difficult to artificially inflate this metric at scale without creating fake accounts or spam, which platforms actively deter. A high rate of new connections indicates real engagement and the platform's core value proposition is being fulfilled.

Incorrect Option:

A. Number of times a user opens the app per day (Session Count):
This is a vanity metric that is easily manipulated. A user could open the app repeatedly without taking any meaningful action. It measures potential opportunity for engagement but not the engagement itself, and can be "hacked" by using push notifications to drive meaningless opens.

B. New account activations:
While important for growth, this is a top-of-funnel metric that is highly susceptible to hacking through inflated marketing spend or fake account creation. It says nothing about whether users are finding value or engaging with the app's core purpose after signing up. A high number of inactive accounts does not indicate success.

Reference:
Salesforce Trailhead, "Define Your Value Proposition and Metrics": This module emphasizes the importance of choosing metrics that directly reflect the delivery of value to the user. For a networking app, the value is in forming professional connections. Therefore, "new connections made" is a strong, value-based metric that is more resistant to distortion than simpler behavioral metrics like opens or sign-ups.

Summary:
Entering a saturated market is a high-risk strategic decision. Executive stakeholders are primarily concerned with risk management and return on investment. A strategy designer must frame the proposal not as a guarantee of success, but as a calculated, de-risked experiment. The focus should be on how design methods can be used to validate the opportunity with minimal investment before committing significant resources.

Correct Option:

C. Restate business goals and show how design could be used to de-risk exploration of this opportunity:
This is the most effective approach for an executive audience. It directly aligns the proposal with the core business goal (new customer acquisition) and speaks the language of leadership: risk mitigation. The designer would outline a lean, phased plan using design research and prototyping to test key assumptions (e.g., "Can we differentiate our value proposition?") before a full-scale launch, thereby turning a risky gamble into a managed strategic experiment.

Incorrect Option:

A. Make a presentation on design best practices and have industry experts speak on new market conditions:
This approach is too theoretical and disconnected from decisive action. While industry context is valuable, "best practices" are generic, and expert opinions are not a substitute for validated learning specific to Cloud Kicks. It does not present a clear, low-risk path forward.

B. Create a clickable high fidelity prototype to assess feasibility and perform user research on desirability:
This is a tactical execution plan, not a strategic business case. Building a high-fidelity prototype is a significant investment that comes after executives have already bought into the strategy of exploration. Presenting this first puts the cart before the horse and may be perceived as a request for a large budget without a prior de-risking strategy.

Reference:
Salesforce Trailhead, "Create a Strategy to Deliver Value": This module emphasizes the importance of connecting design activities to business value and risk reduction. It teaches that a strategy designer's role is to use design thinking to explore opportunities in a lean, iterative way, thereby reducing uncertainty and building a more compelling case for investment.

Summary:
A well-written "How Might We" (HMW) challenge statement should provide enough focus to guide the ideation process without being overly restrictive. The given statement, "How might we help our customers amidst supply chain interruptions?" is too broad. It lacks a specific target user, which is a core component that gives the team a clear perspective and prevents them from generating generic, unfocused ideas.

Correct Option:

A. The persona being designed for:
This is the critical missing element. The statement "help our customers" is vague. Are they designing for a first-time buyer, a loyal business client, or a customer waiting on a delayed custom order? Each of these personas has very different needs and contexts. Specifying the persona (e.g., "How might we help our custom sneaker customers...") provides immediate focus and ensures the solutions are relevant to a specific user's experience.

Incorrect Option:

B. The desired outcome:
The desired outcome is implicitly understood from the context: to provide help or support. A good HMW can be effective without an explicitly stated outcome, as the "How Might We" format itself is inherently focused on achieving a positive change. The lack of a specific persona is a more fundamental flaw.

C. The hypothesis for the solution:
A HMW statement should never include a hypothesis for a solution. Its purpose is to open up the problem space for creative exploration. Including a solution (e.g., "...by sending them more email updates?") would severely limit the team's creativity and defeat the purpose of the ideation stage.

Reference:
Salesforce Trailhead, "Frame Your Design Challenge": This module teaches that a strong "How Might We" question should be broad enough for creative freedom but narrow enough to be manageable. A key way to provide this focus is by specifying the user or customer segment you are designing for, which is missing from the given challenge statement.