6 Thinking Hats

Are you thinking well?

When thinking about anything, whether on our own or in a group, we tend to have a variety of different kinds of thoughts. There are gut feelings, positive ideas, and the cautious constraints, there are thoughts about the process of thinking, creative alternative solutions may pop up and there are the evidence based hard facts. All together in an often confused chaotic way.

Edward de Bono, who coined the phrase ‘lateral thinking’, also brought us the phrase ‘parallel thinking’ – the idea that we think best when we focus on one kind of thought at a time. So whether on our own or in a gathering with others, we can metaphorically put on each hat in turn – perhaps revisiting some along the way… and process all the positive benefits of an idea… and then all together consider the constraints and all the reasons that it will never work… and so on…

• https://youtu.be/la19ZNyvfLA
• https://youtu.be/rJWq5iQJsws
• https://youtu.be/oHiwpz7r4wY – will take you to a helpful video.
• Online library of Quality Service Improvement & Redesign tools – NHS – Improvement. PDF download.
  

If you google Six Thinking Hats you will get loads of info…