De Bono suggested a creative way to overcome management and planning difficulties called 'The six thinking hats'.

In his book, Serious Creativity, Edward de Bono asks you to imagine six coloured hats. Each hat represents a role your mind plays in the critical thinking process. By switching from one hat to another as you think about your topic, you are forced to look at your topic from a variety of perspectives.

These are the practical problems that de Bono wished to overcome:

• How do you get time for creative thinking ?  (especially in the boardroom)
• How can you ask someone to be make some creative effort?
• How do you stop someone from being persistently negative?
• How do you encourage people to look at the benefits of an idea?
• How do you express your intuition and gut feelings in a serious meeting?

For the exercise, start with six different coloured sheets of paper - one for each hat. Select a topic or problem that you would like to think about or work on. Decide which of the hats would be good to start with and work your way through all six, jotting down notes on the thoughts that come to you with each hat.

The table below identifies the six hats, their characteristics and some of the questions you should ask with each one. You may think of other questions as well. If you have worked a problem through all six hats and have jotted down at least three points for each, you will know that you've covered the major points in the critical thinking process: