Brainstorming Six Thinking Hats Communications Essay

Brainstorming Six Thinking Hats Communications Essay Brainstorming is one of the best-known techniques for producing fresh ideas and approaching problems from innovative new angles. Brainstorming sessions are best done in small groups; participants are asked to leave their inner critic at the door and come up with the zaniest ideas possible. This challenge is based on a tool created by famous ‘lateral thinker’ Edward de Bono to improve decision making skills. The Six Thinking Hats technique is particularly useful for group brainstorming as it emphasises ‘what if?’ thinking rather than ‘what is’ assumptions. People or groups often tend to follow certain fixed ways of thinking. This technique involves looking at a problem or issue from a number of different perspectives, each represented by a different coloured hat, and giving each one equal weighting in a discussion. White hat (= objective) When you wear this hat, you focus on available information to see what you can learn from it. You try to fill any gaps in your knowledge. This is where you analyse past trends and extrapolate from historical data. Red hat (= emotions, feelings) When you wear the red hat you use intuition, gut reaction and emotion to respond to an issue or idea. You also try to think how other people will react emotionally to the issue, and try to understand their intuitive responses. Black hat (= negatives, points of caution) When you wear the black hat you are the pessimist. You are cautious and critical and try to find reasons that things will not work. It’s a useful perspective, since it highlights any weak points in a plan and enables you to either eliminate them, or prepare measures to counter problems should they arise. Black hat thinking makes plans more resilient. Yellow hat (= positive focus) The yellow hat is the positive thinking hat. When you wear this hat you seek harmony; its optimistic viewpoint enables you to see the value, benefits and further opportunities in a plan. Yellow ha t thinking helps you keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult. Green hat (= generates new ideas or concepts) The green hat stands for creativity. Its mood is provocative, experimental, and explorative. Wear it to playfully spin ideas free of any judgement or criticism. Blue hat (= defines focus, control of thinking) The blue hat stands for process control. It sees the big picture. Wear this hat to chair a meeting, or to bring any of the other processes /thinking approaches [?] to order. During a typical Six Hats session you will flip between different hat ‘modes’: when ideas are slow in coming you’ll try green hat thinking; when the mood gets too pessimistic, switch to yellow hat thinking; when contingency planning is needed, put on your black hat, and so on. 3 How to Play 3.a Game Instructions The six animals on the right-hand riverbank are desperately looking for their thinking caps, which the wind has cheekily deposited on the left bank. Send the hats back to their respective owners by following the 6 ways of thinking, one at a time, all the way through from the left to the right.