– What is lateral thinking?
In: 499
The point of lateral thinking is to remove the normal constraints on your thinking, so that you don’t eliminate possibilities that might turn out to be useful. One example I remember is reworking the windshield wiper on a car. Almost all the ideas presented had a blade attached to an arm. But when they were told to design without an arm – i.e. freed from that mechanical arm constraint – new ideas, such as using airflow to provide a clear view over the window, emerged. Edward de Bono, who popularized the term, suggested a number of techniques to make lateral thinking easier.
One was the use of the word “po” as a short hand for ‘possible’ which lets you look past initial problems/constraints. For example, when discussing EV’s, a common objection might be “batteries are too small”. So you might say “po you have a battery with 1,000 km range; what happens then?”, which might spark off some whole new ideas.
Another was “Six Thinking Hats” in which he advocated people wearing different coloured hats during different parts of a meeting (metaphorically, I think). For example, the “Green” hat is all about new ideas and free association. If one were to start criticizing an idea during the “Green hat” time, the moderator (who wears a “Blue” hat) might remind the critic that it’s Green hat time, and he can air his objections during the Black hat period. The idea is not to cut off the critical (Black hat) function, but not to deploy it until you have generated some new ideas for review, instead of cutting off most new ideas before they can be expressed.
Latest Answers