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De Bono’s Thinking Hats

...a strategy to promote parallel thinking

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  • Problem solving
  • Decision Making
  • Planning
  • Analysis

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  • Being constructive
  • Being creative
  • Being productive
  • Using information
  • Trying to be logical
  • Managing our emotions

An aid to:

Thinking involves:

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Positives

  • Positive thinking
  • Brightness
  • Optimism
  • Focus on benefits
  • Positive thinking
  • Making it happen

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Minuses

  • Why something didn't work
  • Pointing out difficulties
  • Pointing out the problems
  • Logical thinking

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New Ideas

  • New ideas, concepts, perceptions
  • The creation of new ideas
  • New approaches to problems
  • Alternatives
  • Change

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Emotion

  • Gut feelings
  • No need to justify
  • Hunches, intuition,

impressions

  • Subjective reasoning
  • Feelings

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Facts

  • What information do we have?
  • What information do we need?
  • What information is missing?
  • What do we need to ask?
  • What are the reasons for this?
  • How can we find this

information out?

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Plan

  • Asking the right questions
  • Defining the problem
  • Setting the thinking tasks
  • Breaking the problem down
  • Simple steps