LimeJam Blog

“Six Thinking Hats” is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives.

It helps you make better decisions by pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of a decision, and spot issues and opportunities which you might otherwise not notice.

Combined with the idea of parallel thinking which is associated with it, it provides a means for groups to think together more effectively, and a means to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way. The method is attributed to Dr. Edward de Bono and is the subject of his book, Six Thinking Hats.

Six distinct states are identified

1. Questions (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
2. Emotions (Red) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
3. Bad points judgement (Black) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch
4. Good points (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
5. Creativity (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
6. Thinking (Blue) - thinking about thinking