De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats – The concept

The Six Thinking Hats method of thinking creates focus in team discussions. It helps corporate teams worldwide arrive at more considered decisions with buy in from all stakeholders, in a much shorter space of time than traditionally run meetings.

Defined by the type of thinking required, a group conduct different parts of their discussion under the thinking style of a different coloured hat (white, yellow, black, red, green, blue). Different thinking styles include management, intuition, creativity, analysis, benefits and information.

Managing (Blue) – what is the subject? what are we thinking about? what is the goal?

Intuition (Red) – intuitive or instinctive gut reactions or statements of emotional feeling

Creativity (Green) – statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes

Analyst (Black) – logic applied to identifying reasons to be cautious and conservative

Benefits (Yellow) – Why an idea is useful, identifying value, seeking harmony

Information (White) – considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?

The ‘Blue Hat’ manages the thinking process and controls when to use each coloured thinking style for maximum effect. The blue hat defines the problems and shapes the questions and is responsible for summaries, overviews and conclusions.

The Blue Hat gets you the end result!