Tools and Techniques Paper and Presentation

Tools and Techniques Paper and Presentation

What am I going to eat for lunch? What time am I going to leave for work today? What am I going to do tonight for fun? All of these questions are examples of decisions that I need to make. Decision-making is the cognitive process leading to the selection of a course of action among alternatives. Every decision making process produces a final choice; therefore, it can be an opinion or an action. It all begins when we need to do something, but we do not know what. Decision making is therefore a reasoning process which can be rational or irrational. (Wikipedia, 2007)

When we make the choice that we need to make a decision, we should choose a tool or technique that can help us make the correct possible selection. The technique that I have chosen is called “Six Thinking Hats.” This technique will help you to look at the decisions that you need to make from a number of different perspectives. It will also allow you to move outside your normal way of thinking. With that being said, it will help you to understand the full depth of your decisions. It will also let you spot issues and opportunities that you might not have noticed beforehand. (Mind Tools, 2007)

For many of us when we choose to make decisions, we use the rational side of us and forget about looking at decisions from a creative, emotional, intuitive, or even a negative viewpoint. When decisions are being made this way, we underestimate resistance to plans, fail to make creative leaps and do not make essential contingency plans. However, if we choose to use the Six Thinking Hats technique, we will than be able to mix emotion, our skill in execution, sensitivity, creativity and good contingency planning. (Mind Tools, 2007)

The Six Thinking Hats technique is six different hats with six different styles of thinking. The first hat is the white hat or “the facts, just the facts.” (The de Bono Group, 2007) This hat is more focused on the data that is available. With this hat, you need to look at all the information that is in front of you and see what you can learn from it. With that being said, you also need to be able to see if there are any gaps that exist and if there are you need to be able to fill or account for them.

The second hat is the red hat. When wearing this hat, you need to look at the problems and be able to use your gut intuition or even your emotions. You should also take into account how others would react emotionally. The ability to understand those individuals who do not full accept your choice of reasoning should be viewed too. This hat is also the hat that you can wear to fully express your emotions and feelings. For example, you are allowed to share your likes, wants, dislikes, and hates.

The third hat is the black hat. This is the judgment or even the devil’s advocate hat. This is where you would look at all points that you feel are bad in your decision. When using this hat, you need to look at things defensively and with caution. You also need to be able to see why something may not work. In realizing this, you will see or view things that may go wrong in the plan. In doing this, you will be able to eliminate or alter the plan in order to make them work right. This hat is one of the most powerful and useful of the hats because it allows you to see what may go wrong before you even go down that course of action.

The fourth hat is the yellow hat. This is your brightness and optimism hat. It allows you to be able to think positively and be able to see all the value in your decision. With the brightness of this hat, it allows you to keep moving forward even when things look difficult or unbearable.

The fifth hat is the green hat. This hat is your creativity: the possibilities, alternatives, and new ideas. (The de Bono Group, 2007) This is where you can use your imagination and run wild to come up with solutions to your problem. This hat is like your brainstorming hat where no ideas are wrong, crazy, or even unthinkable.

The final hat is the blue hat. This hat is called the management control. This is where we make sure that this technique is being enforced and used. We need to be able to say and know that this is how it should be working and if it is not we need to be able to go up and be allowed to use the other hats again.

An example of this type of Six Thinking Hats technique was taken from, “Six Thinking Hats: Looking at a Decision from All Points of View.”

The directors of a property company are looking at whether they should construct a new office building. The economy is doing well, and the amount of vacant office space is reducing sharply. As part of their decision they decide to use the 6 Thinking Hats technique during a planning meeting.

Looking at the problem with the White Hat, they analyze