Six Thinking Hats in Online Communities
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Sat, Jun 13, 2009
Kate Dibben, the Online Communications Officer of
Education.au, mentions in passing using “Six Thinking Hats” within communities in her presentation
Making Online Communities Work. It’s a good point, worthy of elaboration. If you’ve ever had important conversations in your communities run aground, then you might find the approach useful, especially in smaller private communities.
Conversations in online communities, just like conversations around the water cooler, the soccer field or the bar stool, can segue from tangent to tangent to tangent. Oftentimes the journey itself is enjoyable, except when the conversation ends up back where it started, and you’ve made no progress on resolving the issue at hand. Sometimes such conversations are an awkward mix of brainstorming, negativity, new information, misplaced emotion, positive feedback and meta-discussions. This can be especially true in feedback communities, where you’re taught to value the feedback, whatever form it takes. For those times when an issue is being discussed for which you need to put in place an action plan, keep conversations on track by asking participants to take turns wearing the metaphorical Hats.
- White Hat – “White is neutral and objective. The white hat is concerned with objective facts and figures.”
- Red Hat – “Red suggests anger (seeing red), rage and emotions. The red hat gives the emotional view.”
- Black Hat – “Black is somber and serious. The black hat is cautious and careful. It points out the weaknesses in an idea.”
- Yellow Hat – “Yellow is sunny and positive. The yellow hat is optimistic and covers hope and positive thinking.”
- Green Hat – “Green is grass, vegetation, and abundant, fertile growth. The green hat indicates creativity and new ideas.”
- Blue Hat – “Blue is cool, and it is also the color of the sky, which is above everything else. The blue hat is concerned with control, the organization of the thinking process, and the use of the other hats.”
A moderator can open a discussion by laying out a sequence through the hats:
“We’re going to start by each metaphorically wearing the White Hat and providing information that we have about this feature and how our organization uses it. After that, and only when we are done providing objective information, we will wear the Green Hat and imagine how this feature could be improved. Then we will wear the Yellow Hat and talk about the benefits of the suggestions. Then and only then will we wear the Black Hat and look at the weaknesses of what we’ve talked about. Before we wrap up, we will put on the Red Hat and talk about how the issues we’ve discussed make us feel. Finally, we will wear the Blue Hat and come to a conclusion about what we think our priorities should be.”
As children we were told “to put on our thinking caps”, and De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats provide a simple but useful framework for helping groups think through issues. The Six Thinking Hats can be thought of as traffic cones to help you guide the conversation to its destination. Try it in your online community the next time your discussions need a little structure.