Six distinct directions are identified and assigned a color. The six directions are:
• Managing Blue - what is the subject? what are we thinking about? what is the goal?
• Information White - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
• Emotions Red - intuitive or instinctive gut reactions or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
• Discernment Black - logic applied to identifying reasons to be cautious and conservative
• Optimistic response Yellow - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
• Creativity Green - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
Coloured hats are used as metaphors for each direction. Switching to a direction is symbolized by the act of putting on a coloured hat, either literally or metaphorically. These metaphors allow for a more complete and elaborate segregation of the thinking directions. The six thinking hats indicate problems and solutions about an idea the thinker may come up with.
Strategies and programs
Having identified the six modes of thinking that can be accessed, distinct programs can be created. These are sequences of hats which encompass and structure the thinking process toward a distinct goal. A number of these are included in the materials provided to support the franchised training of the six hats method; however it is often necessary to adapt them to suit an individual purpose. Also, programs are often "emergent", which is to say that the group might plan the first few hats then the facilitator will see what seems to be the right way to go.
Sequences always begin and end with a blue hat; the group agrees together how they will think, then they do the thinking, then they evaluate the outcomes of that thinking and what they should do next. Sequences (and indeed hats) may be used by individuals working alone or in groups.[4]
Parallel thinking
In ordinary, unstructured thinking this process is unfocused; the thinker leaps from critical thinking to neutrality to optimism and so on without structure or strategy. The Six Thinking Hats process attempts to introduce parallel thinking.
Many individuals are used to this and develop their own habits unconsciously. Sometimes these are effective, other times not. What is certain is that when thinking in a group these individual strategies will not tend to converge. As a result, discussion will tend not to converge. Due to the power of the ego and the identified predilection to black hat thinking in the majority of western culture, this can lead to very destructive meetings. Even with good courtesy and clear shared objectives in any collaborative thinking activity there is a natural tendency for "spaghetti thinking" where one person is thinking about the benefits while another considers the facts and so on. The hats process avoids this. Everyone considers and all look in the same direction together. For example, a façade of a house (metaphorically speaking) and then the group will turn to the backyard. These can also be problems, or the benefits, or the facts, reducing distractions and supporting cross pollination of thought. This is achieved because everyone will put on one hat, e.g., the white hat, together, then they will all put on the next hat together. In this way all present think in the same way at the same time. The only exception is the facilitator, who will tend to keep the blue hat on all the time to make sure things progress effectively. The blue hat tends to be the outward-looking, leader/trail blazing hat that attracts the leaders of all groups. The hats are not a description but a way to look at things. Therefore such methodology aids in better design. This is because it is a designing system based on a creating system rather than an adversarial confrontational thinking system such as dialectic where there is somebody having opposite position.
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