Six Hats thinking is a technique invented by Edward de Bono in the early 1980s.
It has been called the best decision making tool ever but we think it’s more significant than that.
Six Hats is all about parallel thinking. There are six different coloured hats which we pretend to wear, one at a time.
Each hat colour corresponds to a particular kind of thinking – the green hat, for example, is the hat of creativity. The black hat is the hat of judgement. And so on.
Normally, when we make decisions or form opinions, our process is fuddled. We mix up emotional response with logic. We are subjective and ignore the facts that might make us change our minds.
Thinking in parallel unfuddles our thinking and leads to remarkably different results.
Not only does it allow us to be truly objective, it also instigates new ideas.
And yet, Six Hats is super-quick. Meeting times can be cut by 75%, even though more thinking is done.
Philip|Morley 