Brainstorming and Six Thinking Hats: Creativity to innovate
Table of Contents
Methodologies for developing successful innovations make use of creative techniques integrated into one of their stages. Generally, they are implemented during the initial stages, after investigating the problem and learning the needs of their users.
Our article “Creativity: The spice of innovation”, explains the importance to meet the necessary conditions so our innovation processes generate distinguishing ideas and add value. Once these foundations have been laid, creative methods for generating ideas should be implemented.
The best known among them and those we will discuss in this article are:
One of the best known and, however, worst implemented group work techniques. It is used to enhance the generation of ideas and solve specific problems.
It starts from the premise that
creative talent is universal, it is the result of the effort and it can be applied to any kind of problem (…). Creative talent is not unique to a chosen few, but to all human beings involved in it’ *.
Brainstorming is governed by several principles:
There are different opinions about its structure. According to the father of Brainstorming, Alex F. Osborn, the ideal is a panel of 12 members with 1 director (leader), 1 associate director, 5 regular members (very creative) and 5 guests (different per session and depending on the problem). However, some others think that there should be no more than 7 people nor less than 4. It should be as varied as possible regarding professional profiles inherent to the business.
The physical environment should be spacious and comfortable, with participantssitting in a circle, as this encourages interaction. It is advisable that the stage for generating ideas lasts between 20 and 30 minutes.
On the other hand, in order to help to generate ideas a check list can be used, which is a compilation of questions in order to boost its continuous production. Questions can be as follows: What other applications can be achieved if it is modified? Or, what to add? What to eliminate?
In order to effectively carry out a Brainstorming, we should:
Six thinking hats (Lateral thinking)
It is a methodology created by Edward De Bono, based on lateral thinking and used for group decision-making. Lateral thinking seeks to create a new idea regarding the problem posed. Its aim is to have a wide range of approaches and not just one satisfactory solution.
According to De Bono:
‘the aim of lateral thinking is not to find the best solution right away, but to overcome the rigidity of the conceptual models, leading to its disaggregation and subsequent reordering into new models’. **
Lateral thinking uses different techniques such as:
The hats and their roles
Once its basis has been understood, we can delve into the methodology of the Six thinking hats. It tries to reproduce what happens in the human mind during decision-making. It focuses on each thing separately to study it through different approaches.
It is based on the use of 6 colour hats: blue, white, black, yellow and green. Each hat represents a different attitude. Six roles that participants should take in order to address a problem from different points of view.
The methodology of the Six thinking hats can be implemented in two ways:
According to several authors, the groups are made up of a minimum of 4 and up to 7 participants. The time used for each hat should be as short as possible, a 1 minute per hat and person is enough, but the red hat should be the shortest.
The order of the hats is very important as results may vary. Therefore, if the subject is important, it is advisable to make several groups with different orders or with the use of hats individually or in groups.
In the post “Innovation and creativity: Synectics and other creative methods” we explained other methods such as Synectics, Morphological analysis and the Delphos Method. Nevertheless, the method you use is not the important thing but to make the most of these techniques and integrate them into our innovation process naturally.
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- Métodos creativos para organizaciones – Alfredo Muñoz Adánes, Ediciones Pirámide. Page 18.
- Edward De Bono in Métodos creativos para organizaciones – Alfredo Muñoz Adánes, Ediciones Pirámide. Page 56.
References and links:
- Métodos creativos para organizaciones – Alfredo Muñoz Adánes, 2006, Ediciones Pirámide.
- Técnicas de creatividad en Innovación y creatividad de Wiki EOI.
- Innovación para Dummies – Pierre d’Huy, 2018, Para Dummies 2018.
- Brainstorming – Wikipedia.
- Resumen del libro Seis sombreros para pensar de leadersummaries.com.
- Seis sombreros para pensar – Wikipedia.