Thinking Type- Parallel thinking Implimentation Lateral thinking

Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bon in the book New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking published in 1967; it refers to solving problems through an indirect and creative approach.One of the articles on Thinking Manager  , De Bono says "Once you learn the processes and tools of lateral thinking, you can use them formally and deliberately to generate new ideas. One workshop in South Africa generated 21,000 new ideas in an afternoon using just one of the tools of lateral thinking". 

A person would use lateral thinking when they want to move from one known idea to creating new ideas. Following are the tools to generate Ideas through Lateral thinking. You might find it bit complex to understand however readers are advice to read the tools explanation and find out examples solved based on that tool on google, it will clear your ideas about how to use tool. Few examples are incorporated with explanation.

Random Entry Idea Generating Tool: Choose an object at random, or a noun from a dictionary, and associate that with the area you are thinking about. For example imagine you are thinking about how to improve a web site. Choosing an object at random from an office you might see a fax machine. A fax machine transmits images over the phone to paper.  Perhaps this could be a new way to embed the web site's content in emails and other sites  (A new medium to transmit the web content).

Provocation Idea Generating Tool: choose to use any of the provocation techniques—wishful thinking, exaggeration, reversal, escape, or arising. Create a list of provocations and then use the most outlandish ones to move your thinking forward to new ideas.

Challenge Idea Generating Tool: A tool which is designed to ask the question "Why?" in a non-threatening way: why something exists, why it is done the way it is. The result is a very clear understanding of "Why?" which naturally leads to fresh new ideas. The goal is to be able to challenge anything at all, not just items which are problems. For example you could challenge the handles on coffee cups. The reason for the handle seems to be that the cup is often too hot to hold directly. Perhaps coffee cups could be made with insulated finger grips, or there could be separate coffee cup holders similar to beer holders.

Concept Fan Idea Generating Tool: Ideas carry out concepts. This tool systematically expands the range and number of concepts in order to end up with a very broad range of ideas to consider.

Disproving: Based on the idea that the majority is always wrong (Henrik Ibsen, Galbraith^[who?]), take anything that is obvious and generally accepted as "goes without saying", question it, take an opposite view, and try to convincingly disprove it.

Referances:

Lateral thinking on Wiki 

Edward De Bono - Thinking Managers

Real life examples on the use of lateral thinking

Thinking types- Six Hats Thinking - A implementation of Parallel thinking

Six Thinking Hats®, invented by Edward De Bono, is a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. And once learned, the tools can be applied immediately!

You and your team members can learn how to separate thinking into six clear functions and roles. Each thinking role is identified with a colored symbolic "thinking hat." By mentally wearing and switching "hats," you can easily focus or redirect thoughts, the conversation, or the meeting. Once team member wears the one color hat they all will think in one direction as per mentioned by color of Hat below: for ex. if team is wearing white hats, the whole team will talk about only facts known in terms of number, information etc. Following video shows function of each hat in brief:





Please see the  function of other hats in below chart:

	The White Hat calls for information known or needed. "The facts, just the facts."
	The Yellow Hat symbolizes brightness and optimism. Under this hat you explore the positives and probe for value and benefit.
	The Black Hat is judgment - the devil's advocate or why something may not work. Spot the difficulties and dangers; where things might go wrong. Probably the most powerful and useful of the Hats but a problem if overused.
	The Red Hat signifies feelings, hunches and intuition. When using this hat you can express emotions and feelings and share fears, likes, dislikes, loves, and hates.
	The Green Hat focuses on creativity; the possibilities, alternatives, and new ideas. It's an opportunity to express new concepts and new perceptions.
	The Blue Hat is used to manage the thinking process. It's the control mechanism that ensures the Six Thinking Hats® guidelines are observed.

                        

 Six Thinking Hats® Image Reference: The De Bono Group LLC, Webpage
                   

 Using Six Thinking Hats® Team can have following advantages:

• look at problems, decisions, and opportunities systematically
• use Parallel Thinking™ as a group or team to generate more, better ideas and solutions
• make meetings much shorter and more productive
• reduce conflict among team members or meeting participants
• stimulate innovation by generating more and better ideas quickly
• create dynamic, results oriented meetings that make people want to participate
• go beyond the obvious to discover effective alternate solutions
• spot opportunities where others see only problems
• think clearly and objectively
• view problems from new and unusual angles
• make thorough evaluations
• see all sides of a situation
• keep egos and "turf protection" in check
• achieve significant and meaningful results

References:

Six Hats Thinking on Wiki

The De Bono Group LLC, Webpage

Thinking types- Parallel thinking

You can't solve the problem using same logic that has created it. --- Albert Einstein. 

Parallel thinking works on the same basis as mentioned by Albert Einstein in the above quote. Parallel thinking is a term coined and implemented by Edward de Bono The logic is simple you cant drill two holes on a wall by digging same hole dipper n dipper. So you need to move your drill in parallel direction to drill one more hole. In the same way parallel thinking says team should decide one direction of thinking and everyone should think in that direction.

Parallel thinking is about aligning the thinking processes of everyone in the meeting. Instead of person A being positive about his or her idea at the same time as person B is being negative about it, everyone is asked to tackle the issue from the same direction at the same time. In the simplest terms, both persons A and B are asked to think positively about each idea in turn and then think negatively about each idea in turn. In this way, we get each person to find the good in each idea and the bad in each idea. The process isn't guaranteed to make one of them change their mind, but it is guaranteed to get more out of each idea and to restrict any disagreement until both ideas are fully explored.

My company uses the technique both internally and, where appropriate, within team building sessions with our clients. An important ingredient in any team building activity is its ability to offer insights into team processes, hopefully enabling teams to take back improvements that make them more effective in the workplace.

Implementation of Parallel thinking is "Six Hats Thinking" and "Lateral Thinking" by Edward de Bono which I will post on my blog soon. Some of the companies which uses parallel thinking are Nestle, Blackberry, Motorolla, Microsoft etc. See more companies list here .

BlackBerry

References:

Edward de Bono Parallel thinking 


Ezine Articles

Thinking types- Critical thinking

Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2500 years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. We offer here overlapping definitions, together which form a substantive, transdisciplinary conception of critical thinking.

The critical thinking skill is one of eliciting a thought process that will remove an emotional bias. These biases may hinder our ability to think clearly and correctly on a given subject.

With the tools of critical thinking you can breakdown the subjective barriers and understand the "hidden reality" of a given set of data or circumstances. Consider below example.

What can we say for sure from this snippet?

1. The Man has admitted to causing death - Yes he has it is written there.

2. People are upset - Yes, women are crying and protesters are angry.

Can we now deduce that the man is a murderer? - No, he may be (for whatever reason) lying and may not actually have killed anyone. We do not know if he is telling the truth because the statement has not told us this yet.

So now some more information:

The man is telling the truth, but the women are that are crying are his family and believe he has done nothing wrong.

So, how does this now affect our ability to look at the statement?

We, now know that he indeed did cause the deaths of at least eight people (we do not know if there was more) and we also know that the women crying believe he has done nothing wrong - Huh?

Maybe it was an accident and he didn't mean to cause any harm.

Here is some more information for this critical thinking activity :

The Man Purposefully Killed The Women And Children With A Machine Gun

Do you now think that he must be guilty and that his actions were evil? At each stage I have left out information to show you that the lack of information can be as important as the statement itself, which is why we can not afford to make snap judgments based on assumptions, bias and emotions. Without critical thinking, you may have gone off the path completely.

Now, for the last piece of the puzzle to clear it up for once and for all.

Here it comes...

"The man Mr X was a soldier in the war, he had found a village of prisoners, including 58 young children and 14 women who had been beaten and tortured. He tried to help them escape, but was shot at by two young 10 year old boys who were part of the prison camps guardianship, the two boys had now shot Mr X and killed three young girls aged 4, 7 and 9. Mr X used his machine gun to hold back the fire from the guards, while 6 more women guards threw grenades at the prisoners, he managed to shot those guards and the two young soldier boys and escape with the remaining 69 living survivors. The man Mr X was given the highest medal of recommendation and is a hero to the prison camp survivors"

So..

Aha! - So with the remaining information we learn that the man was a hero and was not a vicious, evil cold blooded killer, that the lack of information may at some point lead you to believe. If you don't use critical thinking, the whole story can get obscured.

The idea is initially you think a person who kills is a cold blooded murderer, because your emotional bias makes you cloud your judgment, then you are told it was self defense.

So the outcome of the story and the guilt of the protagonist was dependent on the facts involved.

With your key critical thinking skill, learned from critical thinking techniques, you can reduce the impact of emotional bias by viewing the situation differently.

In Conclusion

What you don't know can often be more important than what you do know, so it is important to only make critical thinking evaluations within the parameters of the information you receive, but never than that or you may possibly make a misjudgment.

With these critical thinking lessons, you can begin to understand how the tools of critical thinking can help you make the best possible evaluations with the knowledge you have.

Hopefully you can attack a problem now realizing that you preconceptions may actually hinder your ability to eventuate an objective outcome. Good Luck!

Another practical example of Critical Thinking implementation is on Jim Odom's (Industry Consultant, Cortland, Ohio, United States) Blog. Find out how he solved one of the US Industry problem using Critical thinking (A evidence based thinking).  Below article is the reference taken from his blog post on Thursday, December 2, 2010, he says

"A plant in China was having a large problem with damage product being received from the US.  The Chinese plant would issue a weekly customer complaint and provide the product information, such as date, machine, part number, tool number, shift, and operator identification.  The producing plant in the US, without looking at the data, thought the problem was due to shipping the product overseas in large cargo ships and tried to solve the problem by making the packaging more robust, which added cost to the product.  After a few months, the problem had not been resolved and the Asia quality manager ask me to get involved.

I started by analyzing the customer complaint information.  I made a matrix of the number of complaints by date, by shift, by machine, by tool number, and by operator identification.  Date, machine, and tool number were random and not significant.  However, there were many more complaints on PM shift and two PM operators accounted for more than 40% of the total complaints.  I then met with the PM supervisor and we observed one of the two PM operators.  We both watched in disbelief as the operator dropped the product into the shipping container instead gently placing it in as per the prescribed method."

To find out more details on this article and valuable Advice from Jim Odom click here

Procedure

Critical thinking calls for the ability to:

• Recognize problems, to find workable means for meeting those problems
• Understand the importance of prioritization and order of precedence in problem solving
• Gather and marshal pertinent (relevant) information
• Recognize unstated assumptions and values
• Comprehend and use language with accuracy, clarity, and discrimination
• Interpret data, to appraise evidence and evaluate arguments
• Recognize the existence (or non-existence) of logical relationships between propositions
• Draw warranted conclusions and generalizations
• Put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives
• Reconstruct one's patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience
• Render accurate judgments about specific things and qualities in everyday life

In sum:

"A persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends.^"

 

References: (click below links for details)

Critical Thinking For Beginners By Xander Hamilton-Reeves on Critical thinking for Beginners


Critical thinking Organisation, CA, USA
 
Critical thinking on WIKI  
  
Jim Odom (Industry Consultant, United States) Blog

Thinking types- Random Idea Generation

Random Idea Generation : This is very quick technique for generating Ideas. Say you are having meeting in the office where you are brainstorming on topic "New type of club" for new business venture. Now, tell every member to write any word that comes in their mind or you can use random word generator available on line for free. Say random word is "sand", now build connection. "New type of club" + "Sand" -> "Sea" this may lead to the idea of "New club at the sea shore" which sounds great. Lets say random word is "old" now find connection, how can you co relate "New type of club" +"old" -> "old people". Got the Idea yes a exclusive club for old people. Try it you can even mail me or post here for my input on connecting idea using random words.

Thinking types- Reverse thinking

Some of you might be knowing this some of you might not that there are n numbers of thinking types which you can practice to generate Ideas and Innovative designs as good as Ideas from Einstein & Edision. For example. one of the type of thinking is called as "Reverse Thinking". Now, whats reverse thinking best example is touch screen phones. Say few years back current invention was "The phone with keyboard". Now to come up with new Idea if we apply reverse thinking i.e. opposite of statement "The phone without Keyboard" so we might channelize our efforts to do R&D and come up with Touch screen phone like I-phone. So, try applying "Reverse Thinking" to your problems and let me know your feedback on how it works for you.

Flip the triangle upside down: This type of thinking is similar to the reverse thinking. Flipping upside down is promoting exactly opposite of what is existing thoughts about product or service in the customers mind. For example "Hospital is place for unhealthy people" Now if you have to promote Brand of your hospital how you will promote it, if you say "XYZ Hospital for unhealthy people" it will scary feeling in the people mind. So flip the things upside down "XYZ Hospital for wellness and healthy Life" people will surely appreciate it and may feel comfortable to visit your hospital. This was just example you can try this thinking technique in your case. Do send me mail or post comment if you need my help on it. I would be happy to help you.

Innovation & Creativity

Hello Everyone ,

This is Sarang and my blog about "Being Innovator" is all about what is innovation and creativity. Lets understand one thing clearly every human is born creator, you can generate ideas like any brilliant person if you channelize your thinking as per innovation and idea generation theories. I m gonna post some good stuff and links which can help you to become innovator. You can even teach your child to practice  innovative thinking, its very simple, easy to practice and effective. Also, you can use innovative thinking to generate money for you, solve your Job / Business problems.The very 1st step is;

1) Find out your area of interest: If you work in the area of your interest you can not only put passion in it but ideas start flowing in your mind naturally as your mind get stimulated while doing activity of your interest. So just do small quick assessment of your self based on 

a) What grabs your attention often ?

b) What interest you often ?

c) What is that one activity you can do for hours and hours without feeling hungry and thirsty. ?

Ask many question like this to yourself and write down there answers on paper. Read them once you are done and then decide your area of interest. If you know any self assessment link which can help others do post in the reply to this post. Will be back with more techniques and tools till then keep posting your views, suggestion on the post. Catch you soon.