Six Thinking Hats Template
Work collaboratively and build agreement when implementing changes and making decisions with your team.
About the Six Thinking Hats Template
Individuals and groups use the Six Thinking Hats technique to separate conflicting modes of thinking. They enable and encourage a group of people to think constructively together in exploring and implementing change, rather than using arguments to fight over who is right and who is wrong.
What is the Six Thinking Hats Template?
This Six Thinking Hats Template is designed to help a team evaluate and develop an idea further. It will help create space for creativity and help you make better-informed decisions by using the six different modes of thinking represented in six different hats: blue hat (organising the thinking), yellow hat (value), grey hat (risk), red hat (feelings), green hat (creativity), and white hat (information).
How to use the Six Thinking Hats template
The Hats are used to give direction to the thinking. They are a signal for everyone in the team to use the same mode of thinking at the same time. They are not for categorizing thoughts after they have been had.
The person organizing the meeting uses the Blue Hat to set out a sequence of Hats that sets the agenda for the meeting. This template uses a preset sequence for evaluating and developing ideas:
Blue Hat: The Conductor's Hat (at the beginning of the sequence). Thinking about and managing the thinking process. The blue hat is the control hat. In the beginning, the blue hat sets the agenda, focus, and sequence of hats.
White Hat: The Factual Hat. The white hat is all about information. What information do you have, what information you need and where to get it.
Red Hat: The Hat For The Heart. The red hat is about gut reactions, feelings, intuitions, and instincts at a particular point in time. The red hat invites feelings without justification. This is important because feelings can change over time.
Yellow Hat: The Value Hat. The yellow hat is for a positive view of things. It looks for the benefits and values.
Grey Hat: The Judge's Hat. The grey hat identifies risk. It is used for critical judgment and must give logical reasons for concerns. It is one of the most powerful hats.
Green Hat: The Creative Hat. The green hat is for creative thinking and generating new ideas, alternatives, possibilities, and new concepts.
Blue Hat: The Conductor's Hat (at the end of the sequence). The blue hat at the end of the sequence is for summaries, conclusions, decisions, and plans for action.
Here are some important things to note:
The hats can be used on your own or in a group.
In group discussions, it is essential that everyone uses the same hat (mode of thinking) at the same time. This is to avoid personal preferences and conflicts between modes of thinking.
Training in the use of the hats includes how to structure the hats into sequences to address different situations. This provides a structure and direction for thinking, leading to more productive and enjoyable discussions.
The history behind the Six Thinking Hats
The Six Thinking Hats were created by Dr. Edward de Bono and have been adopted in training programs by organizations around the world since 1991. The de Bono network includes accredited trainers and facilitators in 72 countries through 18 training partners who act as Authorised Distributors. We provide in-person and virtual training and facilitation, supported by interactive digital courses and applications, to help you apply the methods to topics that are important to you. Please contact us https://www.debono.com/authorised-distributors. This summary was reproduced with permission from de Bono.
The Six Thinking Hats is a registered trademark. Copyright Edward de Bono Ltd 2021.
What do the six thinking hats mean?
Each of the six hats represents a way of thinking: the blue hat is about organising the thinking, the green hat is for creativity, the red hat is for feelings, the gray hat is risk assessment, the yellow hat looks for value, and the white hat is for facts.
What are the benefits of six thinking hats?
The Six Thinking Hats is an excellent tool for you and your team to use empathy, intuition, creativity, and analytical thinking in complementary ways when making decisions. It enables you and your team to think from different perspectives, and it’s a great method to reach an agreement without having arguments.
Get started with this template right now.
SCAMPER Model
Works best for:
Ideation, Operations, Brainstorming
Is your team in a rut? Have you had a lingering problem that can’t seem to be solved? First introduced in 1972, SCAMPER. is a brainstorming method developed by Bob Eberle, an author of creativity books for young people. This clever, easy-to-use method helps teams overcome creative roadblocks. SCAMPER walks you through seven questions that are meant to encourage your team to approach a problem through seven unique filters. By asking your team to think through a problem using this framework, you’ll unlock fresh, innovative ways to understand the problem you’re trying to solve.
Parking Lot Matrix Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Ideation, Meetings
When the creative energy is flowing, a workshop or meeting will yield a lot of new ideas — but not all are on-topic or currently feasible. Roll them right onto a parking lot matrix, a simple, effective tool for separating the best ideas from those that are promising but could use more research or discussion. This template will let you easily make your own parking lot matrix, which will come in especially handy during long meetings (and when you have teammates who tend to go off-topic).
Project Proposal Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Documentation, Project Planning
For any type of project, the Project Proposal template can be a crucial step toward clarifying the context, goals, and scope of a project to get stakeholder buy-in. A project proposal outlines what you want to accomplish, your goals, and how you plan to achieve them. Generally, a project proposal gives the reader some context on the project, explains why it is important, and lists the actions that you will take to complete it. Project proposals have myriad uses. Often, businesses use project proposals to get external buy-in from a donor or outside stakeholder. But many companies draw up project proposals for internal buy-in too.
Design Research Template
Works best for:
UX Design, Design Thinking, Desk Research
A design research map is a grid framework showing the relationship between two key intersections in research methodologies: mindset and approach. Design research maps encourage your team or clients to develop new business strategies using generative design thinking. Originally designed by academic Liz Sanders, the framework is meant to resolve confusion or overlap between research and design methods. Whether your team is in problem-solving or problem space definition mode, using a research design template can help you consider the collective value of many unrelated practices.
Meeting Notes Template
Works best for:
Business Management, Meetings
When your meeting is a success (and Miro will help make sure it is), participation will run high, brilliant ideas will be had, and decisions will be made. Make sure you don’t miss a single one — use our meeting notes template to track notes and feedback in a centralized place that the whole team can access. Just assign a notetaker before the meeting, identify the discussion topics, and let the notetaker take down the participants, important points covered, and any decisions made.
Status Report Template
Works best for:
Project Management, Documentation, Strategic Planning
A status report provides a snapshot of how something is going at a given time. You can provide a status report for a project, a team, or a situation, as long as it emphasizes and maps out a project’s chain of events. If you’re a project manager, you can use this report to keep historical records of project timelines. Ideally, any project stakeholder should be able to look at a status report and answer the question, “Where are we, and how did we get here?” Use this template as a starting point to summarize how something is progressing against a projected plan or outcome.