The Director General (DG) of a large Government Department in Australia was summoned by the State Premier and informed that their budget for the coming year was to be cut by $20 million. 

Given a growing work portfolio across the State, substantial job and cost-cutting already undertaken along with a pledge that there’d be no more funding cuts or job losses, this proved to be a major issue.

In response, the Department’s 14 most Senior Executives were called together for a two-day emergency session to try and find new ways to address the upcoming funding shortfall. In spite of their best efforts the session proved unfruitful.

The DG fortuitously attended a lecture by Dr. Edward deBono later the same month and decided that the thinking methods presented needed to be applied to the current funding dilemma. As a result, the executive team were recalled to the State Capital for a day to attend a new session this time facilitated by de Bono trainer, Frank Connolly. 

Using the parallel and creative thinking of the Six Thinking Hats the Executive Team then generated new perspectives and range of ideas to help address the budget shortfall. With structured thinking processes applied, the significant subject-matter knowledge of the Executive was able to be fully realised. Over a three-hour period the team managed to identify $12.5 million dollars of hitherto unidentified and measurable savings.