Designing a method for improved (distributed) cultural understanding - the cultural dimensions thinking caps

Designing a method, that assists culturally diverse and distributed development teams in better understanding each other's perspectives and, therefore, improving their creative output and collaboration is the goal of this contribution. To do so, the research on cultural theories and different creativity methods that engage communication have been analyzed. Thereafter, a method has been designed combining interactive elements that engage creativity with the content of what lies behind cultural differences. The method uses Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions as a theoretical basis and De Bono’s six thinking hats as a practical basis to reach its goal and therefore successfully support multicultural distributed development teams in solving problems creatively.