Brain storming within your customer support team.

It often seems, that the best growing path for my team is trying to solve those complex customer situations which happens only after release to production.

I have grown to like it. Just sitting in a room with bunch of grown up, intelligent professionals, all experts in their domains. Watch them all puzzled with this one unexplained phenomenon that no one could prepare for.

Usually, those “customer specific configuration” related issues are something that no single engineer can solve, it requires some brain storming involving FSE’s, developers and my professional service team.

In the past, I found that those brain storming sessions tends to be inefficient and insufficient. It may be true for all brain storming sessions, but having so many different disciplines, in different time zones, trying to cooprate, just makes it harder.

So after trying few things, I wanted to share the solution I have adopted and using for the last year: De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats (https://www.debonogroup.com/six_thinking_hats.php)

Why Six Thinking Hats?

Human brains think along multiple directions at the same time. This way of thinking is extremely efficient when quick decisions need to be made. However, when in need to see all small details, the brain tend to fixate on a pattern too quickly. In a team brainstorming session, this problem worsens. Solutions can be quickly jumped to even while the problem is not yet understood, ideas can be shot down and solutions can be pointed out as “bad” without the opportunity to consider them. De Bono suggest that forcing to think along one direction at one time, will lead to increased brainstorming productivity.

So, what hats?

·        Blue Hat (Process)

·        White Hat (Facts, Actual Data)

·        Red Hat (Feelings)

·        Green Hat (Creativity, Ideas)

·        Yellow Hat (benefits, Positive thinking)

·        Black Hat (Caution, Critics)

Shortly, the steps are as followed:

Starting with Blue Hat, the flow of the brainstorming session. The agenda and timelines are decided, the “leader” of each Hat is decided. 5 minutes MAX!

White Hat, All facts that believed to be relevant to the topic (by any of the participants) is presented. There is no judgement if data is relevant or not, and opinions of people not in the meeting can be presented (without taking side). 15 minutes max, try to do it in 10.

Red Hat, feelings and emotions. the objectives is to help feelings surface rather than remain hidden yet play a major part in the discussion, and free the participants from having to justify emotions, or intuitive thoughts. This is the only hat where not all participants have to be a part of. This can take between 2 to 10 minutes.

Green Hat, the ideas part. This is the fun part and the core of the brain storming. Participants are free to generate crazy ideas that may not be immediately relevant or feasible. A team consisting of individuals from different backgrounds, ages, cultures and different perspectives to the issue at hand. Becomes a fantastic asset, rather than a liability, to brainstorming. The objective of the green hat is to generate as many (and as varied) ideas as possible. Don’t limit this part, move to next hat only when the ideas are “dried up”. Innovation is the key.

Yellow Hat, benefits, “we can make it happen” approach. Ideas are no longer tied up to the person who suggested them, they are now owned by the group. All possible positive effects of an idea are noted and discussed. No judgment or bad effects are allowed to be mentioned here. Ideas are ranked based on the number (and power) of the positive effects they have. 10 minutes max.

Black Hat, be cautious and critical, play devil’s advocate. Feasibility, pitfalls and shortcomings of each idea are taken into consideration. Worst-case scenarios are considered and ideas get re-prioritized by the risk they have. This session should take at least 1.5 times of the Yellow Hat phase. (if you spent 10 minutes on Yellow hat, at least 15 minutes should be spent here to allow processing time)

You should now have a ranked order of possible solutions. Good luck. (don’t worry, not at the first time. It will require 4 or 5 times until it gets fully effective)

Few pointers I have noticed.

1.      The order of hats matter, don’t skip any phase, don’t shuffle the order. If you need to “step back” to a previous stage because someone forgot something, only 1 step back is allowed, and only when the current Hat run its course.

2.      All participants use the same hat in any given moment.

3.      A “Hat leader” is a facilitator for each stage. I found it more efficient to change the leader for each hat, both to enable thinking time to everyone and to maintain focus.

4.      Limit the entire session to 90 minutes. It’s hard to hold more.

5.      Tools: everyone should have a notebook and pen to draft ideas, a big whiteboard to sketch on it is a great way to share ideas. The “leader” of each stage is responsible to take notes and transfer the data to next step in orderly fashion.

6.      Everyone participate in ALL hats. Red Hat excluded.

After trying few methods, I have found that the Six Thinking Hats is the one method that had the most effective results, is less time consuming, and more important – generate a professional respect between different team members.

Will be happy to hear some more ideas from your experience and to answer any questions you may have.