Dr. Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats

• The Six Thinking Hats

• The White Hat

The White Hat calls for information known or needed. This covers facts, figures, information needs and gaps. "I think we need some white hat thinking at this point..." means lets drop the arguments and proposals, and look at the data base."

• The Red Hat

The Red Hat signifies feelings, hunches and intuition. This covers intuition,feelings and emotions. The red hat allows the thinker to put forward an intuition without any need to justify it. "Putting on my red hat, I think this is a terrible proposal." Usually feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they are supported by logic. Usually the feeling is genuine but the logic is spurious. The red hat gives full permission to a thinker to putforward his or her feelings on the subject at the moment.

• The Black Hat

The Black Hat is judgment -- the devil's advocate or why something may not work. This is the hat of judgment and caution. It is a most valuable hat. It is not in any sense an inferior or negative hat. The black hat is used to point out why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience, the system in use, or the policy that is being followed. The black hat ust always be logical.

• The Yellow Hat

The Yellow Hat symbolizes brightness and optimism. This is the logical positive. Why something will work and why it will offer benefits. It can be used in looking forward to the results of some proposed action, but can also be used to find something of value in what has already happened.

• The Green Hat

The Green Hat focuses on creativity: the possibilities, alternatives and new ideas. This is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, what is interesting, provocations and changes.

• The Blue Hat

The Blue Hat is used to manage the thinking process. This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the subject itself but at the 'thinking' about the subject. "Putting on my blue hat, I feel we should do some more green hat thinking at this point." In technical terms, the blue hat is concerned with meta-cognition.