Tom H. C. Anderson - Next Gen Market Research

I recall once receiving a business card from someone, though I can’t remember who it was now, which had six colored hats on the back. There was also a link to a website which told you more about the hats.

I thought it was a neat idea, and I wish I would have kept the card so I could have remembered who to give the credit to. I believe he was a marketing consultant of some sort, and the “Six Thinking Hats” aka “De Bono” after its inventor Edward De de Bono, is an example of one of the useful techniques his firm utilized.

Anderson Analytics has conducted brainstorming sessions a few times during the past couple years, though we used more standard techniques. Next time I definitely want to give this technique a try.

The way it works is each hat represents a certain point of view:

White=Observer, neutral, objective and fact based focuses on information available, what is needed and how it can be obtained.
Red = Emotional, intuitive, acting on hunches, no explanations needed.
Black = Devils advocate, judgmental/critical, logical pessimist
Yellow = Seeking benefits/good, logical optimist
Green = Creative, possibilities, new ideas
Blue = Observer, controls process, other hats, helps organize thinking.

A typical hats session may include the following process/steps:

1. White hat presents the facts at hand
2. Green hat generates possible solutions/ideas
3. Yellow hat identifies benefits of ideas while black looks for weaknesses
4. Red hat attempts to get at participants gut feelings
5. Blue keeps order and summarizes

There is no set number of participants. The hats can be used even by an individual brainstorming alone. If in a group members identify which hat they are wearing so as to feel free to speak their mind without worrying about offending anyone.

In the past I’ve used my own simpler technique which has worked rather well for me. If I had to give it a cute name perhaps I’d call it The Three Why’s Men. Basically I think about the problem/objective from three perspectives (customers, competitors and supplier/partners). Obviously the customer is most important, and sometimes we’ll just think about the problem from 3 different types of customers. This can actually be even more powerful (not all customers are the same). Then I ask, what do they want, why do they want it, how can we fulfill this need. The why’s and how’s here are repeated (it’s an iterative process).

I’m curious if anyone out there has used the 6 Hats technique, and what your experience was? Or are there any other techniques you would highly recommend?

-Tom

PS. Found the video below as well