Monday 6 February 2012

Edward De Bono and his Headwear Collection

After watching that St. Christopher's video mention about Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats, I'm reading up on them a bit. It's interesting, what he describes is quite simple; it's just about a team thinking about a problem from 6 different standpoints in succession (actual hats not required - but it adds a sense of flamboyancy to the exercise).

Its kinda like a boiled-down Design Specification but reversed, and then discussed within a team. And sure, to maximise creativity, viewpoints such as caution (Black Hat) should be left until last. There's nothing worse than a meeting where ideas are shot down as soon as they are suggested - thats just counter productive.

I also see parallels with things like the 'Whiteboard' from PBL methods (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). Whiteboards encourage problem solvers to tackle a problem using 4 columns on a whiteboard: Facts, Ideas, Learning Issues and Action Plans. This is similar to De Bono's White Hat (known information, missing information), Green Hat (creativity, new ideas, possibilities) and Blue Hat (overview, direction). However De Bono adds other variants which force each team member to counter their feelings of a situation; its aim being to remove the effects of bias, ego or timidity.

Seems obvious when you're told it, and this guy is making a mint from it. Save your money from lining his pocket by watching 1 hour's worth of YouTube videos of him talking about it.