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Six Thinking Hats Method Tutorial

1. What are the Six Thinking Hats?

The Six Thinking Hats is a powerful thinking tool developed by Dr. Edward de Bono, the "father of creative thinking." It aims to improve communication efficiency and creativity in team meetings and discussions.

The core of this method is to break down complex thinking processes into six different, parallel directions, each represented by a specific colored "hat." When participants "put on" a certain hat, they can only think and speak according to the thinking mode represented by that hat.

2. Why Use the Six Thinking Hats?

In traditional discussions, people often engage in multiple modes of thinking simultaneously (e.g., listening to information, feeling emotions, and criticizing all at once), which can easily lead to confusion and conflict. The Six Thinking Hats solves this problem through Parallel Thinking.

  • Improve Efficiency: Allows everyone to focus on one thinking direction at a time, avoiding endless debates and arguments.
  • Promote Comprehensive Thinking: Ensures that all aspects of a problem (facts, emotions, risks, benefits, ideas) are fully considered, preventing omissions.
  • Reduce Interpersonal Conflict: Separates opinions from individuals. "I'm not criticizing you; I'm just thinking with the black hat on." This provides a safe way to express differing opinions (especially negative ones).
  • Stimulate Creativity: Specifically opens a "green" channel for ideas and new thoughts, encouraging people to think outside the box.

3. Functions of the Six Hats

🔵 Blue Hat - Control and Organization

  • Role: The "commander" or "facilitator" of the thinking process.
  • Function: Manages the entire thinking process. Sets the agenda, clarifies objectives, controls the sequence of hat usage, summarizes, and makes decisions.
  • Thinking Questions: "What is our goal?" "Which hat should we use now?" "What's next?" "Let's summarize."
  • When to Use: Typically used at the beginning and end of a meeting, and can also be used during the process to change direction.

⚪ White Hat - Information and Facts

  • Role: The objective "information officer."
  • Function: Focuses on objective, neutral facts, data, and information. Only states "what we know" and "what we need to know."
  • Thinking Questions: "What relevant data do we have?" "What are the known facts?" "What information do we need to obtain?" "How can we get this information?"
  • Note: White hat thinking does not involve personal opinions or emotions.

🔴 Red Hat - Emotions and Intuition

  • Role: The emotional "empath."
  • Function: Expresses pure emotions, intuition, hunches, and "gut feelings."
  • Thinking Questions: "What is my feeling about this?" "What does my intuition tell me?" "Do I like this idea?"
  • Note: When using the red hat, there is no need to provide any reasons or explanations for your feelings.

âš« Black Hat - Risks and Warnings

  • Role: The cautious "judge" or "risk assessor."
  • Function: Focuses on identifying risks, difficulties, obstacles, and potential negative consequences. Thinks critically and points out why an idea might not work.
  • Thinking Questions: "What are the potential risks here?" "What's the worst-case scenario?" "Where are the weaknesses in this plan?" "Does this comply with our policies and resources?"
  • Note: Black hat thinking is a logical negative assessment, not purely negative emotion.

🟡 Yellow Hat - Benefits and Value

  • Role: The optimistic "dreamer."
  • Function: Focuses on discovering opportunities, benefits, value, and positive aspects. Looks for the feasibility and advantages of an idea.
  • Thinking Questions: "What are the benefits of this idea?" "What value does it have?" "How can we make it happen?" "What's the best-case scenario?"
  • Note: Yellow hat thinking requires logically based optimism, not just blind optimism.

🟢 Green Hat - Creativity and Possibilities

  • Role: The creative "explorer."
  • Function: Focuses on generating new ideas, alternatives, possibilities, and creative solutions. Encourages "thinking outside the box."
  • Thinking Questions: "Do we have other options?" "Is there a completely new way to do this?" "What if we break the rules?"

4. How to Organize a Six Thinking Hats Meeting?

  1. Start (Blue Hat): The meeting facilitator (wearing the blue hat) introduces the topic and objectives to everyone and sets the order of hats to be used today.
  2. State Facts (White Hat): All participants share background information and data related to the topic.
  3. Generate Ideas (Green Hat): Encourage everyone to propose as many ideas and solutions as possible.
  4. Evaluate Benefits (Yellow Hat): For the ideas proposed in the green hat stage, analyze their advantages and value one by one.
  5. Assess Risks (Black Hat): Then, conduct a risk assessment for these ideas, identifying potential problems.
  6. Express Intuition (Red Hat): Give everyone an opportunity to express their intuitive feelings about a solution.
  7. Summarize and Decide (Blue Hat): Finally, the facilitator puts on the blue hat again, summarizes the discussion results, and guides the team to make a final decision or formulate the next action plan.

Note: The above is just an example sequence; the order of hat usage can be flexibly adjusted according to the nature of the topic.

5. Practical Case: Deciding Whether to Develop a New App

  • Blue Hat: The meeting objective is to decide whether to invest resources in developing a new task management app called "TaskMaster." We will proceed in the order of "White-Green-Yellow-Black-Red-Blue."
  • White Hat: What are the competitors in the market? How large is the user base? What technologies and resources are needed for development?
  • Green Hat: What unique features can we add? For example, AI intelligent sorting, gamification incentive mechanisms, etc.
  • Yellow Hat: This app can solve user pain points, potentially attract a large number of users, and bring subscription revenue.
  • Black Hat: Market competition is fierce, user acquisition costs are high, it may not be profitable, and technical implementation is difficult.
  • Red Hat: I feel this idea is cool and very excited! / I'm a bit worried; I feel the market is already saturated.
  • Blue Hat: In summary, although there are risks, the opportunities are also great. Our next step is: spend a week creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and test it with seed users.