Lateral Thinking

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Lateral Thinking

• Thinking that is Outside the Box!

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Can You Solve this Puzzle?
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Can You Solve this Puzzle?
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Can You Solve this Puzzle?
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Can You Solve this Puzzle?
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Lateral Thinking

• Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de
  Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician, and
  writer
• de Bono defines Lateral Thinking as methods of
  thinking concerned with changing concepts and
  perception.

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Lateral Thinking Example

• It took two hours for two men to dig a hole five
  feet deep. How deep would it have been if ten men
  had dug the hole for two hours?
• The answer appears to be 25 feet deep

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But did you consider?

• A hole may need to be of a certain size or shape
  so digging might stop early at a required depth.
• The deeper a hole is, the more effort is required
  to dig it, since waste soil needs to be lifted
  higher to the ground level. There is a limit to
  how deep a hole can be dug by manpower without
  use of ladders or hoists for soil removal, and 25
  feet is beyond this limit.

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But did you consider?

• Deeper soil layers may be harder to dig out, or
  we may hit bedrock or the water table.
• Are we digging in soil? Clay? Sand? Each presents
  its own special considerations.
• Digging in a forest becomes much easier once we
  have cut through the first several feet of roots.
• Each man digging needs space to use a shovel.

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But did you consider?

• It is possible that with more people working on a
  project, each person may become less efficient
  due to increased opportunity for distraction, the
  assumption he can slack off, more people to talk
  to, etc.
• More men could work in shifts to dig faster for
  longer.
• There are more men but are there more shovels?

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But did you consider?

• The two hours dug by ten men may be under
  different weather conditions than the two hours
  dug by two men.
• Rain could flood the hole to prevent digging.
• Temperature conditions may freeze the men before
  they finish.
• Would we rather have 5 holes each 5 feet deep?

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But did you consider?

• The two men may be an engineering crew with
  digging machinery.
• What if one man in each group is a manager who
  will not actually dig?
• The extra eight men might not be strong enough to
  dig, or much stronger than the first two.

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What is Lateral Thinking?

• Lateral thinking is about reasoning that is not
  immediately obvious
• Ideas may not be obtainable by using only
  traditional step-by-step logic.
• Techniques that apply lateral thinking to
  problems are characterized by the shifting of
  thinking patterns away from entrenched or
  predictable thinking to new or unexpected ideas.

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What is Lateral Thinking?

• A new idea that is the result of lateral thinking
  is not always a helpful one
• When a good idea is discovered in this way it is
  usually obvious in hindsight

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The Six Thinking Hats

• A Lateral Thinking Strategy by Edward De Bono

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Six Thinking Hats' is an important and powerful
  technique.
• It is used to look at decisions from a number of
  important perspectives.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• This forces you to move outside your habitual
  thinking style, and helps you to get a more
  rounded view of a situation.
• It has the benefit of blocking the confrontations
  that happen when people with different thinking
  styles discuss the same problem.
• Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different style of
  thinking.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Many successful people think from a very
  rational, positive viewpoint. This is part of the
  reason that they are successful.
• Often, though, they may fail to look at a problem
  from an emotional, intuitive, creative or
  negative viewpoint.
• This can mean that they underestimate resistance
  to plans, fail to make creative leaps and do not
  make essential contingency plans. 

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Similarly, pessimists may be excessively
  defensive, and more emotional people may fail to
  look at decisions calmly and rationally.
• If you look at a problem with the 'Six Thinking
  Hats' technique, then you will solve it using all
  approaches.
• Your decisions and plans will mix ambition, skill
  in execution, public sensitivity, creativity and
  good contingency planning.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• White Hat
• With this thinking hat you focus on the data
  available. Look at the information you have, and
  see what you can learn from it.
• Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try
  to fill them or take account of them.
• This is where you analyze past trends, and try to
  extrapolate from historical data.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Red Hat
• 'Wearing' the red hat, you look at problems using
  intuition, gut reaction, and emotion.
• Also try to think how other people will react
  emotionally.
• Try to understand the responses of people who do
  not fully know your reasoning.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Black Hat
• Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad
  points of the decision.
• Look at it cautiously and defensively.
• Try to see why it might not work. This is
  important because it highlights the weak points
  in a plan.
• It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or
  prepare contingency plans to counter them.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Black Hat
• Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans
  'tougher' and more resilient.
• It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and
  risks before you embark on a course of action.
• Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of
  this technique.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Black Hat
• Many successful people get so used to thinking
  positively that often they cannot see problems in
  advance.
• This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Yellow Hat
• The yellow hat helps you to think positively.
• It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to
  see all the benefits of the decision and the
  value in it.
• Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when
  everything looks gloomy and difficult.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Green Hat
• The Green Hat stands for creativity.
• This is where you can develop creative solutions
  to a problem.
• It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which
  there is little criticism of ideas.

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The Six Thinking Hats

• Blue Hat
• The Blue Hat stands for process control.
• This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings.
• When running into difficulties because ideas are
  running dry, they may direct activity into Green
  Hat thinking.
• When contingency plans are needed, they will ask
  for Black Hat thinking, etc.