PurposeThe Six Thinking Hats approach is called “Lateral Thinking” and/or “Parallel Thinking.” Hats are a metaphor for putting on one’s “thinking cap.” This model is a simple technique that encourages cooperation, exploration, and innovation, all under the umbrella of metaphorically applying six colorful “hats.” It is designed to focus “thinking energy” in one direction. In this approach, people engage in objective fact-finding together, discuss the positive aspects of an idea(s), and mutually explore the risks and/or the disadvantages of the idea(s) in the spirit of play. Those who feel that they are part of the process are more likely to accept and/or buy into the outcome. In this approach, people often end up with a better appreciation of others’ positions. It is an example of focused team thinking where consensus is the goal. The result of this task should be helping you with parts of your SLP.
Assignment BackgroundIn developing an approach based on Task #4, the project manager’s primary role is to encourage and facilitate full team involvement in understanding how the use of the Six Thinking Hats approach can keep team meetings moving smoothly and generate novel ideas at the same time. In addition, the project manager will also act as the subject matter consultant and/or the expert on the use of the Six Thinking Hats and make sure that each team member has the opportunity to be placed on one of the team meeting agendas to use this leadership thinking approach. Hopefully, increased idea creativity and new ways of thinking will enhance the team’s productivity.
Now, with you doing an SLP, this concept can be viewed a bit differently. This will help you complete parts of your project and think about whether your potential recommendations would work for your client.
The Six Thinking Hats
Refer back to the Module 8: Learning Resources page for information on the Hats and how you apply each hat’s role as you work on this SLP. However, if you’re working on the ARP instead of the SLP, you’ll want to review the approach example on Module 8: Learning Resources page.
An Example of Approach for this Task (for the ARP):
White Hat Thinking – responsible for facts, figures, and/or objective informationit describes what is there for the team to use
Red Hat Thinking – responsible for emotions, feelings, hunches, intuitionit lets the team members tell how each of them feels about a situation
Green Hat Thinking – responsible for creativity, idea generation, provocative thoughts, lateral thinkingit comes up with new ideas, possibilities, and/or alternatives to be considered
Black Hat Thinking – responsible for negative thoughts, playing the “Devil’s Advocate”a cautious approach that identifies what is wrong with an idea and/or why something will not work
Yellow Hat Thinking – responsible, positive, logical, constructive thoughtsit sees the good in ideas and acts in a cheerleading mode
Blue Hat Thinking – responsible for controlling the process, directing attention to the other “hats” as necessaryit serves to summarize and point the process in the proper direction
Instructions In the course of completing the SLP, I hope that you will have the opportunity to use the Six Thinking Hats approach to share and/or facilitate a brief meeting either with your client or with the interviewees that you will include the context/results in your project. You will then report on how the model worked and whether or not it was helpful to the progress of the project.
The results of doing this task should help you with many parts of your project. This report should be no longer than four (4) double-spaced pages in the written summary and should include the following components that are to be completed by each student (yes this is individual work, not a group work):
First, describe the problem and/or issue discussed using the Six Thinking Hats approach in 2-3 sentences.
Next, describe in detail how the “hats” were used to guide the team through developing a solution and/or answer(s) to the problem and/or issue. Were you and your team members able to think in one direction? Include an example or two from the team meeting. Be sure to cite which “hats” were the most helpful and which “hats” (if any) did not seem to contribute much to the Six Thinking Hats.
Provide an opinion, based on your observations of its overall use for the team, on the Six Thinking Hats model. Would you use it again? Why or why not?
References: You still need three references for this writing. One reference is from our textbook, and the suggested chapters for this task include Chapters 7 and 8.
Notes on APA:
Since this is a small paper you will not need to have the abstract section but you still need the title page and the references.
