The Six Thinking Hats

What does your intuition tell you? What is your gut feeling? What are your simple feelings on the matter? Do not attempt to explain or justify your feelings; just acknowledge them at this moment.

RED HAT:EMOTIONS & FEELINGS

Photo: Gianmaria

Verones, Flickr

WHITE HAT:

INFORMATION, FACTS & FIGURES

What information is now available to help you think about this matter? What information would you like to have? How might you obtain the information that you feel would be necessary/useful when deciding about this matter?

Photo: jmtimage, Flickr

GREEN HAT:

CREATIVE &

LATERAL THINKING

How can the idea be modified to improve it and to remove obvious faults? How can some of the difficulties pointed out by the black hat be overcome? Are there alternative ways to achieving this same objective?

Photo: Procsilas Moscas, Flickr

YELLOW HAT:

BENEFITS & POSTIVE SPECULATION

What are the benefits, values and advantages of this idea? What are the logical positive points? How could this idea be made workable? What are the good things about this suggestion?

Photo: Kevin Cloud, Flickr

BLACK HAT:

CAUTION & NEGATIVE

CRITICAL

What are the points of caution? What are the disadvantages? Are there potential problems? What can go wrong? What are the negative points? What are the difficulties surrounding the question?

Photo: Diana Lee, Flickr

How could you summarize/organize the thinking that has taken place? Can you come to a conclusion? To do further thinking, steps should be taken - which ones? What should happen next?

How could you summarize/organize the thinking that has taken place? Can you come to a conclusion? To do further thinking, steps should be taken - which ones? What should happen next?

BLUE HAT: THINKING ABOUT THINKING/FOCUS

Photo: evoo73, Flickr