Six thinking hats is an ideation technique that employs six different ways of thinking about problems or situations. It forces one of six distinct modes of thinking to occur sequentially, each represented by a coloured hat. This way problems can be addressed from different angles in a structured manner. The approach can be used individually or in the context of a group. With the latter, all participants can ‘wear’ different hats or the same hat.
The black hat represents managing. When ‘wearing’ this hat, consideration should be on risk assessment, problems, the preparation of contingency plans, or any of the weak points in the plan. The white hat represents information. It considers the facts that are known or are required and supports learning from available information. The red hat represents emotions. It focuses on intuition or gut feelings and appraises how others might react emotionally. The blue hat represents discernment. It includes approaches where the ‘wearer’ acts as a facilitator of a meeting, controls discussions, or creates a time management plan. The yellow hat represents optimism. This incorporates the identification of all benefits of a project or idea in terms of competitive advantage, potential, or increased revenue. The green hat represents creativity. It concentrates only on new ideas or alternative solutions.
Using ‘Six Thinking Hats’
Step 1: The facilitator ‘wears’ the blue hat. They decide the colour hat allocated to all participants and confirm that nobody deviates from their assigned role
Step 2: The facilitator directs the discussion and determines the order in which each hat may contribute. Best practice recommends that hats are used in pairs. This is because some represent opposite points of view, specifically, yellow is positive and black critical, red emotional while white data-driven. Questions can be used to initiate or stimulate the discussion.
Step 3: Multiple rounds of discussion are conducted until the facilitator decides that sufficient ideas or insights have been generated.
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