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As a devout planner, I benefit from the fact that my projects generally stay on track and deliver solid results. However, the risk of a planner is that it fosters an environment that misses out on those creative moments of innovation that arise through spontaneity, improvisation and free thinking.

A planner can always "schedule" time for steps, but these activities may not come naturally to me. That's why I am always on the lookout for good frameworks to ensure that creativity can bubble up to the surface of my groups. Presentation Zen just posted a video about Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats. I have heard about the method before, but it never stuck with me. Now that my MBA experiences have helped me recognize my strengths and weaknesses as a group member, this methodology seems like a great tool to help planners move outside of their habitual thinking.

There are great internet resources about the methodology (such as this one at Mind Tools), but I will do a brief review. First here is a video of Edward de Bono discussing the first five hats.

Overview of the Six Hats:

White Hat: The facts and nothing but the facts. Data, information, what questions need to be answered, what are the gaps, what do we have, what do we not have, and how are we going to get it.

Red Hat: Emotions are OK. This is where people talk about feelings and instinct that we can't support with facts. Since in most business environments feelings are not allowed, people rationalize them in a logical argument that can severely bog down a meeting. Red Hat gives team members a way to signal that this comment is a hunch. Red Hat comments can range from personal like or dislike to instincts coming from many years of industry experience. The key point is that anyone expressing a Red Hat thought does not have to justify it.

Black Hat: The logical negative. Essentially, the Black Hat is our critical thinking. Why does something not fit; what are the weaknesses. It is an important function early in innovation to identify weaknesses that will need to be overcome and critical assumptions that will need to be verified before big bets are placed. Black Hat thinking should be used at critical points of innovation, but it should not dominate the process as it will generally lead to risk-adverse projects with relatively low payoffs.

Yellow Hat: The logical positives. What is the logical feasibility, benefits and advantages that would flow from project. Just as critical thinking finds reasonable weaknesses with the plan, we should also think about reasonable strengths inherent in the plan (something we often forget about while focusing on the negatives).

Green Hat: The creative hat. The Green Hat allows the group to put forward new ideas, discuss possibilities of the project (ie, where can it go), and think of alternatives. It is a great tool to reverse dominance of Black Hat thinking. When the Black Hat seems to dominate group discussion ask the group to put on their Green Hats for awhile!

Blue Hat: The one hat to rule them all. This is the hat of the meeting chair who's job is to ensure the discussion covers the other five hats.