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Six Thinking Hats (What? (Blue Hat
blue-hat (The Blue hat represents…
Six Thinking Hats
What?
STH is a system for group discussion management. The hats are a mnemonic for remembering and focusing on the different types of thinking that we all already use. The colors themselves are arbitrary, as it is the type of thinking the color represents that actually matters.
Blue Hat
The Blue hat represents management and metacognition. Wearing a blue hat means the participants are talking about the process. Participants should be asking answering the questions: What are we trying to accomplish right now? What hats do we need to wear to achieve our goals? Are we wearing all the hats correctly? Who is guiding the discussion? How long should we spend thinking with each hat?
Red Hat
The Red hat represents emotion and intuition. Wearing a red hat means the participants should share their feelings about an idea. Participants should freely share thoughts like: This idea is very motivating to me. This idea makes my stomach churn. I think people might interpret this idea incorrectly. My gut tells me this idea will be popular with the younger generations, etc.
Yellow Hat
The Yellow hat represents positivity and optimism. Wearing a yellow hat, participants should try to find everything good about an idea. Participants should be trying to ask and answer the questions: What's good about this idea? What traits about this idea can we focus on and build upon?
Black Hat
The Black hat represents caution and criticism. Wearing a black hat, participants should try to find everything wrong with an idea. Participants should by trying to ask and answer the questions: Why won't it work? What's to dislike about it? Where are the logical fallacies? How will it cost too much?
Green Hat
The Green hat represents creativity and free flowing expression. Wearing a green hats means the participants should share their ideas freely. Participants should be sharing just about everything that enters their brain that is not any of the other hats thought type. Participants should share thoughts and ask questions like: A large enough paper plane could carry human passengers. Propane gas could power modified internal combustion engines. What are all the potential uses of aluminum foil?
A common trap people fall in to is withholding their thoughts and ideas because they are "stupid" ideas. We fear inevitable judgement of our ideas and wish to keep up appearances that we're super smart and always right. STH is meant to mitigate this self-consciousness by reserving those comments for times when the group is wearing the black hat.
White Hat
The White hat represents research. Wearing a white hat means seeking out the facts, figures, and otherwise known quantities about the subject being discussed. Participants should be asking and answering questions like: What is the age distribution of our customers? What is the cost breakdown for our product's assembly? What laws affect our production?
When? Where?
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Applicable to most problems. Can be done even as a single thinker as a tool for organizing thought and staying on task.
How?
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Hints
There is really only one rule: whichever hat is being worn, all participants must try to contribute that hat’s type of thoughts. It’s okay to have other color thoughts but they should be written down or otherwise held on to for later to reduce interruptions, distractions, and tangents.
Typically, it's beneficial to have a moderator running the discusison, telling the group when to switch between hats.
A common mistake is to assign a single hat to each discussion participant. This is the OPPOSITE of what STH is supposed to be!
Instead, each participant wears the same hat at the same time, and all participants change hats at the same time.
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Who?
STH was invented by Edward de Bono, who is just some guy as far as I know.