Thinking hat

Thinking hat is an analogy of different styles of thinking suggested by de Bono(2010). It is designed to facilitate conflict-less discussion during ideation stage of further proceses in development meetings.

Recently, as a first development project in graduate school, I had to design a service of language learning application with group of my colleges. Although I really enjoyed drawing crazy ideas into our service and improving it with different ideas & point of views(critics), one of the most difficulties from our group work process was drawing a consensus on important features.

Suggestion from my friend is to really try to follow design protocol which is introduced during the class. Thereby, I come up with the idea of making this hat as a real world mediator of the meeting.

According to de Bono, (or as it is suggested during the class), Six Thinking Hats represent different styles and mode of thinking.
White(Paper; Objective thinking which is based on facts and figure).
Red(Blood; Intuitive thinking, which is based on gut feeling and emotion).
Black(Serious; Cautious thinking, which is based on critical thinking).
Yellow(Sun; positive thinking, which based on hopes and benefits).
Green(Growing Grass; creative thinking, which is about new ideas).
Blue(The Sky Above; organizational thinking, which is about discussion process).
de Bono explains argument happens when we think in diffrent styles at the same time.

In addition to a identifying different modes of thinking, de Bono further suggests guideline(in a way a switching different modes of thinking purposedly, and making people to focusing on one style of thinking at the same time.) in the meeting, which is called 'Six Hat Thinking Protocols'.
following this guideline, features of my 'thinking hat' were designed :)
Rule 1. Only moderator can trigger hat changes -> in this case, 'Thinking Hat' itself can be a moderator. which is switching the modes with coloful signals and sound.
Rule 2. let people talk in a hat short time, in turn -> The point is reminding people of 'which modes' or sequence of meeting they are in so that they can involve fully in same direction(let 'thinking' hat to emit or change color in preset sequence. and also abiding time, by giving the gist of one's point is also imporant. ('timer' function suggesting "next turn" during the meeting.)

I think it could also be used with mobilephone application(in a way of setting total time of discussion and split time dedicated to each modes of thinking and also each person on the time, and changing the sequence of of hats during the meeting and probably providing some of the analysis of each participants of the meting. - I will discuss more it detail in later post :P