Six hats for software testers - Red

This tip comes from Julian Harty, and is based on the work of Edward de Bono. Julian uses the metaphor of six thinking hat to provide six different and distinct viewpoints for software testers. When you wear your red hat, you focus on feelings and emotions. What are your gut feelings and what do your senses tell you about what you're testing?

The red hat provides a safe, controlled vent for people to say how they feel. These feelings may be positive or negative. Without the red hat, people’s feelings may be masked and appear as facts or opinions “it’ll never work here because no-one wants it…” And once the red hat is removed we can put our emotions to one side and focus on other directions. We can use the red hat to ask people how they feel about something. [It] includes intuition, hunches, and emotions. You do not have to justify your contributions!

You can see Julian present the topic at STARWEST here.