SIX HAT THINKING MODEL

De Bono introduced a directional sequence used in the brainstorming process. The Six
Hats thinking method is based on a metaphorical six hats representing different human
thinking types. The team uses these hats to address situations based on sequenced
thoughts rather than chaotic discussions. The Six Hats thinking can be used during critical
thinking sessions to achieve specific targets such as solving problems, discussing an
argument, planning in-depth, and analysing the creative thinking process.

White hat
This hat represents the facts and information about the problem of the argument. During
this part, the stockholders only share information about the issue and take notes. No
further development in the thinking process should be done. Questions in this part can be
“what is the available information?” and “what are the facts we have?”

Yellow hat
In contrast to the black hat, the yellow hat supposes to reflect the sun or an optimistic
attitude. The stakeholders think from an optimistic point of view about the problem or
suggestion. It helps to spotlight the advantages and benefits of the recommendations.
During this, the questions are “what are the advantages of applying the solution?” and
“why do you think it is workable?”

Black hat
Wearing the black hat drives attendees to think about the problem or suggestion
cautiously and defensively. This part aims to identify the cons of the proposal and the
disadvantages, and why the idea may not work based on logical reasons.

Focusing on the warnings, risks or cautions helps the stakeholders to isolate the
reasoning and think of the solutions in the yellow one. During this discussion, the question
that can be asked is “what are the risks?” and “why is the suggestion not working?”

Red hat
The emotions hat presents the stakeholders’ feelings about the problem and their gut
reactions. Using this hat is to understand the different emotional responses such as love,
hate, like and dislike. The red hat does not aim to understand the reason behind these
feelings. We can ask questions like “what do you feel about the suggestion?” and “what
is your gut reaction?”

Green hat
This hat represents the creative thinking part of the discussion. During the critical thinking
discussion, this hat fuels the stakeholders’ thinking to innovate a creative thinking solution
for the problems or look to the suggestions from a creative perspective. Innovative tools
can drive creativity during the conversations, such as the Lego Serious Play and
brainstorming techniques.

Blue hat
This hat is the process control plan where the meeting leaders manage difficulties during
the discussions. It makes sure that the guidelines of the six thinking hat technique is
applied. This hat can be used to drive the thinking process to better routes. For example,
the facilitators can direct the discussion to the green hat route if there are no ideas.
THE SIX SOCRATIC QUESTIONING

One of the most enduring and influential methods of critical thinking and analysis, even
today, was developed nearly 2500 years ago, by someone who made no writing of his
own and was sentenced to death for his relentless questioning. Socrates, a Greek
philosopher who lived in Athens from 470–399 BC, is arguably the most famour thinker
of all time.

The record we have of his remarkable contribution to western thinking is captured in the
writings of his students, Plato and Xenophon, his students. Plato’s dialogues outline the
dialectic method of inquiry, known as the Socratic Method. Still used today, this method
is a way of breaking down a problem into a series of questions where the answers
gradually distill the answer a person is looking for.

The six questions posed delve deep into underlying beliefs and knowledge to strip away
assumptions and contradictions forcing one to re-examine one’s own beliefs and the
validity of such beliefs. It is a negative method of hypothesis elimination. Better
hypotheses are discovered by steadily identifying and eliminating contradictions.

These six questions are still highly relevant today and are indispensable to problem-
solving. Problem-solving and critical thinking are indispensable to any creative pursuit or
design thinking, where integrity, authenticity, and truth are important. In fact, the Socratic
method of questioning is the essence of critical thinking.

1. QUESTIONS FOR CLARIFICATION.

a. What is the problem you are trying to solve? [challenging the problem is a way to
define exactly what the problem is]

b. Can you give me an example? [examples serve to clarify associated problems and
situations that may have relevance to this problem]

c. Can you explain further? [by pushing deeper into the problem, its reasons and
causes identifies the non-superficial examples]

d. Are you saying…? [classic clarification. Often restating the problem in different
words adds another shade for the problem definition and subsequent solutions]

2. QUESTIONS THAT PROBE ASSUMPTIONS.

a. What could we assume instead? [Assumptions are our short-hand for beliefs and
habits. There are always other ways to view or think about a problem, by exploring
alternative views you open up the possibility of better solutions]

b. Are you assuming…? [Identifying your assumptions is critical to your

understanding of the problem and overcoming cognitive bias]

c. How can you verify or disprove that assumption? [There are 3 ways to look at any
problem; what we think we know (assumptions), what we do know (facts), what we
need to know (research)
 d. Is that always the case? [Finding and exploring different cases broadens your
outlook on possible solutions]

e. What would happen if…? [Exploring alternatives is something our brain excel at.
This goes to the heart of the creative process and is often used for brainstorming
and ideation. Usually the wilder the ideas and scenarios the better. Whilst not all
scenarios are useable or applicable, with a growth mindset, all cases are useful
even if they are useless! Failures are often the best source of learning.]

3. QUESTIONS THAT PROBE REASON AND EVIDENCE.

a. What would an example be? [This points to asking, “what would a potential solution
look like?” Modeling solutions to problems helps to shape the solution, either
structurally or strategically]

b. What is this analogous to? [the ability to use associative thinking and metaphorical
thinking opens creative channels. An example may be interpreting brain function
to computer software and hardware (although I think this is a poor analogy).
Thinking of one thing in the context of another can be very enlightening]

c. Why do you say that? [language is often careless and reflects our habits and
assumptions. Challenging language encourages us to re-assess our thinking]

d. How do you know? [what facts back up the statement. If there are no facts then
this is an assumption which could be challenged.]

e. Why? [There is a technique for asking “why?” five times, developed by Sakichi
Toyoda, founder of Toyota Industries. The idea is to drill down into the reasons
behind a problem or solution, like children trying to get to the heart of a reason,
asking why repeatedly challenges any superficiality or assumptions about the
challenge]

f. What evidence is there that supports…? [Evidence also needs to be challenged.

This is the “scientific method” of publishing and peer review]

4. CONSIDERING ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES

a. Are there any alternatives? [One of the key elements of problem-solving is seeking
out alternatives and looking at other points of view]

b. What is the other side of the argument? [there is a technique whereby one
assumes the persona of a person different from yourself to try to understand a
different perspective. This can be highly effective, particularly in product
development and marketing campaigns]

c. What makes your viewpoint better? [you must defend your position or let it go. A
growth mindset is ideal for this question, whereby you learn from assumptions and
failures.]

d. What is another way to look at it? What is the counter-argument? [flipping the
problem to it’s opposite often reveals new insights. Reversing both the problem
 and the potential solution is a very strong technique for understanding the problem
and the consequences of a solution.]

e. Who benefits and who would be affected by this? [people don’t want things; they
want solutions to problems. (problems may come in all shapes and sizes; status,
wealth, clean drinking water, identity, belonging, freedom, etc.]

f. What are the strengths and weaknesses of…? [simple SWOT analysis — Strength,
Weakness, Opportunity Threat — can bring an answer to a question closer to
becoming a solution]

5. CONSIDERATION OF IMPLICATIONS & CONSEQUENCES.

a. What generalizations are being made? [generalizations are the companion of
assumptions. We generalize because we need to group things in block and
associations of understanding. Being specific focuses attention on the detail of the
argument or problem]

b. What are the implications and consequences of the assumption? [certain ideas
have implications which may not be immediately apparent consequences. An
example may be the Poll Tax riots in the UK. In 1989 the Thatcher government
replaced domestic rates, was It was levied on houses rather than people, with a
flat-rate per-capita Community Charge, called the poll tax. This provoked the Poll
Tax Riots across the UK.]

c. How does that affect…? [The wider the net of effect is drawn the more
comprehensive the understanding of the argument or solution will be]

d. What if you’re wrong? [considering the opposite or the reverse]

e. What does our experience tell us might happen? [Common sense is often
underrated and often overlooked. However, intuitive instincts are worth listening to
as they often shed further light on the argument]

6. META-QUESTIONS. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE QUESTION.

a. What is the point of the question? [questioning the motives of the question. One of
the key questions is, are we asking the right question?]

b. What does…mean? [questioning the meaning of a question is similar to repeatedly

asking “why?” All these methods are a method for understanding better them
challenge and the problem]

c. Why do you think I asked this question? [by reversing the question onto someone
else’s perception of the question a different shade is revealed]

d. How does …apply to everyday life, or to our business’ objectives/mission

statement etc.? [Again, this is about common sense, instinct, and intuition. It’s very
easy to get carried away with arguments and decisions, particularly during a new
product launch, when often simply asking the simple question brings the focus
back to asking the right question.
BEYER’S EVALUATIVE THINKING MODEL

Barry Beyer, a prominent contemporary thinking skills theorist and teacher, interprets
critical thinking as a more specifically evaluative activity than Bloom’s Taxonomy would
imply:

Critical thinking is not making decisions or solving problems. It is not the same as
reflective thinking, creative thinking, or conceptualizing. Each of these other types of
thinking serves a specific purpose. We make decisions in order to choose among
alternatives. We solve problems when we encounter an obstacle to a preferred condition.
We engage in creative or conceptual thinking to invent or improve things. Critical thinking
serves a purpose quite different from these other types of thinking. (Beyer 1995, 8)

For Beyer, the crux of critical thinking is criteria: “The word critical in critical thinking comes
from the Greek word for criterion, kriterion, which means a benchmark for judging” (Beyer
1995, 8-9). Thus, critical (or, to use Beyer’s preferred term, evaluative) thinking provides
the means to assess the “accuracy, authenticity, plausibility, or sufficiency of claims”
(Beyer 1995, 10).

Beyer asserts that critical thinking involves 10 cognitive operations, which can be
employed in any sequence or combination as needed for the thinking task at hand:

 Distinguishing between verifiable facts and value claims

 Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information, claims, or reasons
 Determining the factual accuracy of a statement
 Determining the credibility of a source
 Identifying ambiguous claims or arguments
 Identifying unstated assumptions
 Detecting bias
 Recognizing logical fallacies
 Recognizing logical inconsistencies in a line of reasoning
 Determining the strength of an argument or claim (Beyer 1988, 57)

Further, Beyer argues that successful critical thinking requires “complex and often
simultaneous interaction” of the following six elements:

 Dispositions. Critical thinkers develop habits of mind that “guide and sustain critical
thinking”, including skepticism, fairmindedness, openmindedness, respect for
evidence and reasoning, respect for clarity and precision, ability to consider
different points of view, and a willingness to alter one’s position when reason and
evidence call for such a shift.

 Criteria. Critical thinkers know about and have the ability to construct appropriate
benchmarks for judging the issue at hand.

 Argument—defined as “a proposition with its supporting evidence and reasoning.”

Critical thinkers are skillful at constructing, identifying, and evaluating the strength
of arguments.
  Reasoning—the “cement that holds an argument together.” Critical thinkers
determine the strength and validity of a conclusion by examining the soundness of
the inductive or deductive process through which the conclusion was reached.

 Point of View. Critical thinkers are aware of their own point of view and capable of
examining other points of view in order to better evaluate an issue.

 Procedures for applying criteria and judging. Critical thinkers have a repertoire of
strategies appropriate to the subject matter and type of judgment to be made
(Beyer 1995, 10-20)

In other words, critical thinkers habitually question the authenticity of anything that
confronts them to ascertain exactly the extent to which it is an authentic instance of what
it purports to be. In addition, they make judgments based on certain standards or other
measures that serve as criteria for plausibility and truthfulness. And they pay special
attention to the reasons and reasoning that undergird conclusions and claims.” (Beyer
1995, 22)

Common Critical Thinking Mental Models by

Category

Explaining
1. Hanlon’s Razor — “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
carelessness.”
2. Occam’s Razor — “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest
assumptions should be selected.”
3. Cognitive Biases — “Tendencies to think in certain ways that can lead to systematic
deviations from a standard of rationality or good judgments.”
4. Arguing from First Principles — “A first principle is a basic, foundational, self-evident
proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or
assumption.”
5. Proximate vs Root Cause — “A proximate cause is an event which is closest to, or
immediately responsible for causing, some observed result. This exists in contrast to
a higher-level ultimate cause (or distal cause) which is usually thought of as the ‘real’
reason something occurred.”

Modeling
1. Thought Experiment — “considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the
purpose of thinking through its consequences.”
2. Systems Thinking — “By taking the overall system as well as its parts into account
systems thinking is designed to avoid potentially contributing to further development
of unintended consequences.”
3. Scenario Analysis — “A process of analyzing possible future events by considering
alternative possible outcomes.”
4. Power-law — “A functional relationship between two quantities, where a relative
change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in the other quantity,
independent of the initial size of those quantities: one quantity varies as a power of
another.”
5. Normal Distribution — “A very common continuous probability distribution…Physical
quantities that are expected to be the sum of many independent processes (such as
measurement errors) often have distributions that are nearly normal.”
6. Sensitivity Analysis — “The study of how the uncertainty in the output of a
mathematical model or system (numerical or otherwise) can be apportioned to
different sources of uncertainty in its inputs.”
7. Cost-benefit Analysis — “A systematic approach to estimating the strengths and
weaknesses of alternatives that satisfy transactions, activities or functional
requirements for a business.”
8. Simulation — “The imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over
time.”
9. Pareto Efficiency — “A state of allocation of resources in which it is impossible to
make any one individual better off without making at least one individual worse off…A
Pareto improvement is defined to be a change to a different allocation that makes at
least one individual better off without making any other individual worse off, given a
certain initial allocation of goods among a set of individuals.”

Brainstorming
1. Lateral Thinking — “Solving problems through an indirect and creative approach,
using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be
obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic.”
2. Divergent Thinking vs Convergent Thinking — “Divergent thinking is a thought
process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible
solutions. It is often used in conjunction with its cognitive opposite, convergent
thinking, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which
in some cases is a ‘correct’ solution.”
3. Crowdsourcing — “The process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by
soliciting contributions from a large group of people, especially an online community,
rather than from employees or suppliers.”
4. Paradigm shift — “a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental
practices of a scientific discipline.”

Experimenting
1. Scientific Method — “Systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and
the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”
2. Proxy — “A variable that is not in itself directly relevant, but that serves in place of an
unobservable or immeasurable variable. In order for a variable to be a good proxy, it
must have a close correlation, not necessarily linear, with the variable of interest.”
3. Selection Bias — “The selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis in such a
way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample
obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed.”
4. Response Bias — “A wide range of cognitive biases that influence the responses of
participants away from an accurate or truthful response.”
5. Observer Effect — “Changes that the act of observation will make on a phenomenon
being observed.”
6. Survivorship Bias — “The logical error of concentrating on the people or things that
‘survived’ some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of
their lack of visibility.”

Reasoning
1. Anecdotal — “Using a personal experience or an isolated example instead of a sound
argument or compelling evidence.”
2. False Cause — “Presuming that a real or perceived relationship between things
means that one is the cause of the other.”
3. Straw Man — “Giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while
actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.”
4. Plausible — Thinking that just because something is plausible means that it is true.
5. Likely — Thinking that just because something is possible means that it is likely.
6. Appeal to Emotion — “Manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or
compelling argument.”
7. Ad Hominem — “Attacking your opponent’s character or personal traits in an attempt
to undermine their argument.”
8. Slippery Slope — “Asserting that if we allow A to happen, then Z will eventually
happen too, therefore A should not happen.”
9. Black or White — “When two alternative states are presented as the only possibilities,
when in fact more possibilities exist.”
10. Bandwagon — “Appealing to popularity or the fact that many people do something as
an attempted form of validation.”

Learning
1. Deliberate Practice — “How expert one becomes at a skill has more to do with how
one practices than with merely performing a skill a large number of times.”
2. Imposter Syndrome — “High-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize
their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud’.”
3. Dunning-Kruger Effect — “Relatively unskilled persons suffer illusory superiority,
mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is…[and] highly
skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously
assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others.”
4. Spacing Effect — “The phenomenon whereby learning is greater when studying is
spread out over time, as opposed to studying the same amount of time in a single
session.”

Productivity
1. Focus on High-leverage Activities — “Leverage should be the central, guiding
metric that helps you determine where to focus your time.”
2. Makers vs Manager’s Schedule — “When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule,
meetings are a disaster.”
3. Murphy’s Law — “Anything that can go wrong, will.”
4. Parkinson’s Law — “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

5. Gate’s Law — “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and
underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Nature
1. Nature vs Nurture — “the relative importance of an individual’s innate qualities as
compared to an individual’s personal experiences in causing individual differences,
especially in behavioral traits.”
2. Chain Reaction — “A sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product
causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads
to a self-amplifying chain of events.”
3. Filling a Vacuum — A vacuum “is space void of matter.” Filling a vacuum refers to the
fact that if a vacuum is put next to something with pressure, it will be quickly filled by
the gas producing that pressure.
4. Emergence — “Whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through
interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such
properties.”
5. Natural Selection — “The differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to
differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in heritable
traits of a population over time.”
6. Butterfly Effect — “The concept that small causes can have large effects.”
7. Sustainability — “The endurance of systems and processes.”
8. Peak Oil — “The point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is
reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline.”

Philosophy
1. Consequentialism — “Holding that the consequences of one’s conduct are the
ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.”
2. Distributive Justice vs Procedural Justice — “Procedural justice concerns the
fairness and the transparency of the processes by which decisions are made, and
may be contrasted with distributive justice (fairness in the distribution of rights or
resources), and retributive justice (fairness in the punishment of wrongs).”
3. Effective Altruism — “Encourages individuals to consider all causes and actions, and
then act in the way that brings about the greatest positive impact, based on their
values.”
4. Utilitarianism — “Holding that the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility.”
5. Agnosticism — “The view that the truth values of certain claims — especially
metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine, or the
supernatural exist — are unknown and perhaps unknowable.”
6. Veil of Ignorance — “A method of determining the morality of a certain issue (e.g.,
slavery) based upon the following thought experiment: parties to the original position
know nothing about the particular abilities, tastes, and positions individuals will have
within a social order. When such parties are selecting the principles for distribution of
rights, positions, and resources in the society in which they will live, the veil of
ignorance prevents them from knowing who will receive a given distribution of rights,
positions, and resources in that society.”
 Internet
1. Filter Bubble — “In which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a
user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past
click behavior and search history) and, as a result, users become separated from
information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own
cultural or ideological bubbles.”
2. Botnet — “A number of Internet-connected computers communicating with other
similar machines in which components located on networked computers communicate
and coordinate their actions by command and control (C&C) or by passing messages
to one another.”
3. Spamming — “The use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited
messages (spam), especially advertising, as well as sending messages repeatedly on
the same site.”
4. Content Farm — “large amounts of textual content which is specifically designed to
satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engines.”
5. Micropayment — “A financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and
usually one that occurs online.”
6. Godwin’s Law — “If an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long
enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or
Nazism.”