01 / UNDERSTAND
What are the Six Thinking Hats?
Six Thinking Hats is Edward de Bono’s method for directing a group’s attention through distinct thinking modes. Participants consider the same mode together rather than becoming permanent advocates for different positions. The hats organise thinking, not personality types.
The method can separate information, intuition, caution, benefits, alternatives and process management. It does not establish that an idea is correct or replace evidence, domain expertise or a clear decision owner.
Why use Six Thinking Hats?
A meeting can mix a factual uncertainty, an emotional reaction and an operational risk into one argument. Separating the mode makes it easier to record what kind of contribution is being made. For a designer, this can create space for alternative concepts without requiring the group to suppress valid concerns or pretend every concern is an established fact.
When to use it
USE IT WHEN
A discussion repeatedly mixes evidence, reactions and evaluation.
A team needs to explore a proposal from several perspectives.
A facilitator can maintain the thinking mode without assigning people fixed roles.
When to choose another method
Use Research Plan when a critical uncertainty needs investigation rather than discussion.
Use RACI Matrix when decision ownership is the main problem.
Use Usability Testing when a proposed experience needs evidence from use.
What you’ll need
Define the question and what authority the session has. Invite people with relevant perspectives and explain that everyone changes mode together. Prepare a visible record, clear prompts and time boundaries. Participants should be able to express a concern without being labelled negative. Name how unresolved evidence and disagreements will leave the workshop.
The six thinking modes
Keep the elements that help answer your question and support a decision.
Information available, missing or uncertain.
Feelings, intuition and reactions, labelled as such.
Risks, difficulties and reasons for caution.
Potential value and benefits to examine.
Alternatives, possibilities and new directions.
Purpose, sequence and management of the thinking process.
02 / PUT IT INTO PRACTICE
How to facilitate a Six Thinking Hats discussion
Keep evidence and assumptions distinct. Revisit your work when new information changes your understanding.
01
Frame the question
Use blue mode to establish focus, authority and intended output.
Should appointment changes keep the old visit until a replacement is confirmed?
02
Separate known information
Use white mode to record evidence and gaps without turning guesses into facts.
We need reliable data about failed replacements.
03
Make reactions visible
Use red mode to hear intuition without demanding a research justification.
Staff may feel anxious about duplicate reservations.
04
Explore benefits and risks
Give yellow and black modes distinct space under a sequence suited to the question.
Preserving access could help residents; capacity conflicts need examination.
05
Develop alternatives
Use green mode to explore responses to the tension rather than defending one screen.
Consider a temporary hold or staff confirmed replacement.
06
Return to process
Use blue mode to synthesise what was learned and what remains unresolved.
A workshop preference is not an operational agreement.
07
Assign next work
Name the decision owner, evidence needed and next review.
Operations checks capacity rules before a prototype is tested.
Example: reviewing a safer appointment change
Fictional scenario: a product team discusses preserving an old repair visit while a replacement is pending. White mode records missing capacity evidence. Red mode captures staff unease. Yellow mode examines protection against losing a repair, while black mode identifies conflicting reservations.
Green mode generates a temporary hold and an assisted confirmation route. Blue mode closes with an operational question and a prototype task. The six labelled cards keep mode and contribution together; they use words as well as colour.
The discussion does not choose by counting positive comments. It separates a promising concept from the condition that would make it workable. The invented scenario demonstrates process, not a measured benefit from using the method.
03 / BELOW THE SURFACE
Below the surface: changing mode does not equalise power
A structured discussion can still make some people’s concerns easier to dismiss.
CLASSIFICATION
Are equivalent claims receiving equivalent evidence treatment?
Check facts and assumptions.
VOICE
Who cannot comfortably contribute?
Offer a suitable contribution route.
AUTHORITY
Who can decide or verify the next step?
Do not let synthesis imply agreement.
A junior participant’s reaction may be recorded as intuition while a senior participant’s equally unsupported view becomes a fact. The sequence looks balanced, but evidence standards are not. Facilitation needs to inspect how claims are classified, not only whether each mode received time.
For consequential statements, preserve who can verify the claim and whether it is observed, inferred or unknown. A mode label is not an evidence label. Allow silent contributions or private follow up where the setting makes public disagreement difficult.
This editorial reading does not modify the six modes into a new framework. It asks what the process can and cannot resolve. If a conflict concerns authority, incentives or unacceptable risk, name that issue explicitly and take it to the people able to address it.
Six Thinking Hats companion worksheet
The original two page companion records one question through the six modes and reviews evidence, participation and next work. It is an editorial worksheet with attribution to de Bono, not official training material or a claim of certification.
Practical tips
Have the group consider one mode together.
Use labels in addition to colours.
Close with evidence questions and owners.
Common mistakes
Assigning one person to be the permanent critic.
Treating feelings as facts or facts as feelings according to status.
Using the workshop as a substitute for testing or decision authority.
What you’ll get
A clearer record of different kinds of thinking and a bounded next step. Carry factual gaps into research and operational questions to the responsible owner before treating a proposal as accepted.