Colour Your Thinking
I’m a fan of Edward de Bono, and I love his Six Thinking Hats concept. It’s a way to manage discussions or problem solving. You can check out the details if you like; in short, you can imagine people putting on coloured hats to drive different kinds of thinking or observations. This stops people taking over with a particular agenda and prevents a certain emphasis being put on discussion.
Six Thinking Hats is a useful solo review tool for your thesis too. As each colour of hat corresponds to a certain kind of thinking you can explore your research in a different and useful way. For example, you might make some notes about a chapter in the following sequence of thinking:
- White Hat: what is this chapter about?
- Blue Hat: what process or method drives it forward?
- Red Hat: how do you feel about the material in it?
- Yellow Hat: what is good about this chapter?
- Black Hat: what could be better?
- Green Hat: where are the opportunities to build on this work?
If different coloured hats sounds silly, just take these six questions in sequence as a way to unpick some thoughts about your thesis!