six-thinking-hats
Six Thinking Hats
Overview
Six Thinking Hats (Edward de Bono, 1985) prevents the most common meeting failure: different thinking modes colliding simultaneously. The fix is parallel thinking — everyone uses the same mode at the same time. Six hats: White (data/facts), Red (gut/emotions), Black (caution/risk), Yellow (optimism/value), Green (creativity/alternatives), Blue (process/meta).
ABB CEO Percy Barnevik cut 12-hour cross-cultural management meetings to under 2 hours after adoption. IBM and DuPont embedded the method in leadership development.
Compose with neighbors: lateral-thinking populates Green Hat. critical-thinking runs inside Black Hat. mece structures the White Hat data phase.
When to Use
Use when: group decision degenerates into debate; proposal needs multi-angle evaluation; creative ideas get killed by habitual criticism; someone says "let's look at this from all angles," "we keep going in circles," "we need structure"; individual high-stakes decision needs forced multi-angle review; a platform-shift bet needs balanced evaluation (e.g. "should we go all-in on AI agents / AI-native," "is our AI capex justified," "how do we weigh AI adoption risk vs. AI-native competition").
When NOT: deep specialist analysis required (use hats for framing only); group too political (hat roles used as cover); time under 10 minutes; question is purely factual (run critical-thinking).