Featured Reading: Six Thinking Hats

 

Used by organizations around the world, from IBM to Microsoft, DuPont to NTT, NASA to Federal Express, the “Six Hats Method” of problem-solving and conceptual thinking is a crucial tool for those organizations seeking a way to balance compliance with the bottom line and encourage Quality by Design implementation and innovation.

For the busy executive, a single cross-country airline flight is all that is needed to review the book and put its elements into play.

The main premise of the methodology is that we all try to do too much when  thinking—we juggle emotions, information, logic, hope, creativity, analysis, reactions and so on.  This then prevents us from using our minds efficiently...or effectively.

The colored hats are metaphors for these types of thinking.  By consciously stating “Now we are going to do ‘black hat’ thinking” (e.g., critique an idea), you free up everyone in the meeting to concentrate on that one task, thereby eliminating defensiveness, egos, and so on.  In this way you provide a structure with plenty of flexibility and creativity to encourage innovation and compliance.

Six Thinking Hats is a tool that seems so simple—  even silly with its colored hat metaphors—and yet, for more than 22 years, it has yielded incredibly powerful results.  If you've not relied upon it in brainstorming and problem-solving sessions - including CAPA resolutions - then maybe it's time you structured your thinking with a little bit more color.