Six hats separates different types of thinking temporarily. Rather than defending benefits and risks at once, the group adopts one perspective together and then changes. The hats are thinking roles, not personality traits.

The blue hat sets the challenge, order, and time. If facts are missing, the white hat may show that a decision would be premature.

Review a low-risk proposal for one or two minutes per hat. The blue hat must close with a next step: test, investigate, or discard with a reason.

For a completed example at Lumen, white notes that reading behaviour is unknown; yellow sees fewer doubts; black warns of false expectations; green suggests two examples; blue agrees to test a fictional prototype.

• Assigning one hat permanently to each person.
• Using black to ridicule ideas.
• Closing without a decision or explicit unanswered question.

Six hats separates facts, emotions, risks, benefits, alternatives, and process direction. With the other techniques, it enables structured exploration. The next module applies them from diagnosis to a solution test.