Six Thinking Hats

Looking at a Decision From All Points of View

Dr. Gunjan Mathur

Six Thinking Hats

Looking at a Decision From All Points of View

'Six Thinking Hats' is an important and powerful technique. It

is used to look at decisions from a number of important
perspectives.
This forces you to move outside your habitual thinking style,
and helps you to get a more rounded view of a situation.

Six Thinking Hats

Looking at a Decision From All Points of View

This tool was created by Edward de Bono.

Many successful people think from a very rational, positive viewpoint. This is part
of the reason that they are successful.
Often, though, they may fail to look at a problem from an emotional, intuitive, creative
or negative viewpoint.

How Might You Use The Six

Thinking Hats?
variety of applications.

Meeting Facilitation
Preparing for discussions
Continuous process improvement
New products / new designs
Idea Generation
Conflict resolution
Ethical Decision-Making
Radical Innovation
Group Problem Solving
Customer focus groups / interviews
Leadership development
Presentations
Virtual meetings
Individual thinking
Individual Problem Solving
Reports/Memos/Emails

Six Thinking Hats

The premise of the method is that the
human brain thinks in a number of distinct
ways which can be identified, deliberately
accessed and hence planned for use in a
structured way allowing one to develop
strategies for thinking about particular
issues.

Six Thinking Hats

Dr de Bono identifies six distinct states in
which the brain can be "sensitised". In each
of these states the brain will identify and
bring into conscious thought certain aspects
of issues being considered (e.g. gut instinct,
pessimistic judgment, neutral facts).

 Just one hat may be used ("What's your red

hat on this issue?"), or a combination of the
Six Thinking Hats may be used in a
particular sequence to examine an issue.

White: objective facts & figures

Red: emotions & feelings
Black: cautious & careful
Yellow: hope, positive & speculative
Green: creativity and new ideas
Blue: control and organization of thinking

Need for using these hats

Focussed thinking
Removes ego
Saves time
Symbolic role
Emphasis on parallel thinking

Six Thinking Hats

Looking at a Decision From All Points of View

pessimists may be excessively defensive. Emotional people may fail to

look
at
decisions
calmly
and
rationally.
If you look at a problem with the 'Six Thinking Hats' technique, then
you will solve it using all approaches. Your decisions and plans will
mix ambition, skill in execution, public sensitivity, creativity and good
contingency planning

How to Use the Tool

You can use Six Thinking Hats in generating new ideas or while resolving
complicated issues.
In meetings it has the benefit of blocking the confrontations that happen when
people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.

Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different style of

thinking

These are explained in the following slides -

White Hat

With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look
at the information you have, and see what you can learn
from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to
fill
them
or
take
account
of
them.
This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate
from historical data.

White Hat

What information do we have?

What information do we need?
Whats missing?
What questions do we need to ask?
How are we going to get the information?

Red Hat

'Wearing' the red hat, you look at problems using

intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how
other people will react emotionally. Try to understand the
responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning

Black Hat
Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the
decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively. Try to see
why it might not work. This is important because it
highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to
eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to
counter them.
Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' . It
can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you
embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of
the real benefits of this technique - many successful people
get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot
see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared
for difficulties

Yellow Hat

The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the

optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of
the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps
you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and
difficult

Green Hat

The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you

can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a
freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little
criticism of ideas.

Blue Hat

'Blue Hat Thinking' stands for process control. This is the

hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into
difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct
activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans
are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc..

SEQUENCING
Begin & end with Blue. In between, use any
reasonable sequence(de Bono)
Move the process of discussion in a desired order
eg
-Blue, White, Red, Yellow, Green, Black, Blue
Each part/hat should be time limited try two minutes

The example from the class

Students are talking , while the teacher is
delivering the lecture.

Using white hat

Students are talking while the teacher is taking the
lecture.
There is noise and therefore other students are
distracted and cant hear the teacher.
Students do not understand the instructions that are
given .
Many students become distracted and off task
resulting in the failure to complete work
Students are not understanding the focused lecture
due to lack of concentration

Red hat
The teacher feels offended.
Students become frustrated because they
cannot hear directions .
Serious students feel their time is getting
wasted. They are disappointed and sad.
Those talking enjoy joking around. They are
happy.
It represents emotional thinking of a person.

Black hat
Time is wasted
Learning is compromised
Teacher feels students do not respect
him/her and do not wish to hear what he/she
is saying
Flow of discussion is less clear.

Yellow hat
Students can express their ideas.
It can be fun.
Not only the smart kids get to speak.

Green hat
Teacher will try to incorporate interaction from a
variety of different students rather than just the
smart kids
Students will take into account whether their
comment will interfere with other students
learning
Students will think of new ways to communicate
rather than talking in class.
Students will be able to develop ideas as a result
of being creative in class

Blue hat
Teacher learns that they need to monitor the amount of time
that they spend talking within the classroom
Teacher needs to involve all students within discussions
Teacher needs to recognize that some students need
thinking time before responding. Allowing these students
time to compute solutions promotes wider participation and
increased learning
Students realize that their talking makes the speaker feel
unappreciated and disrespected
Students realize that their comments are jeopardizing the
learning of other individuals
Students realize that talking out of time demonstrates a lack

of self-discipline

Problem
Reduced productivity in the team
More working hours leading to fatigue
Tight schedule missed deadlines

White hat (facts and figures)

Information should be gathered on

Technical knowledge of team
Estimation and planning
overtime

Black hat (negatives of current

scenario)
Lack of business knowledge
Less members in the team
Ineffective planning

Red hat
Overtime should be paid
Team sized should be increased
Target date should be extended

Green hat
Work from home
motivate workers
Train the team members