Wearing a white hat will allow someone to present information in a neutral and objective way. When a group of members puts on its white hat, the group focuses directly on factual information. For the moment everyone looks to see what information is available, what is needed, and how it might be obtained. Proposals, opinions, beliefs and arguments are put aside.
The next is the Red Hat which covers intuition, feelings, hunches and emotions. Usually, feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they are supported by logic. Often, the feeling is genuine but the logic is spurious. Wearing the red hat allows you to put forward your feelings and intuitions without the need for justification, explanation or apology. The red hat allows feelings, as such, to come into the discussion without pretending to be anything else. It is always valuable to get feelings out into the open. .
The Black Hat is the hat of caution and judgment. Wearing the black hat allows you to consider your proposals critically and logically. The black hat is used to reflect on why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience, or the system in use. Mistakes can be disastrous, which makes the black hat very valuable. It is the most used hat and possibly the most useful hat. However, it is very easy to overuse the black hat. Caution that is used too early in the problem solving process can easily kill creative ideas with premature negativity.
The Yellow Hat is for optimism and the logical positive view of things. Wearing the yellow hat allows you to look for benefits, feasibility and how something can be done. Yellow hat thinking is a deliberate search for the positive. Benefits are not always immediately obvious and you might have to search for them. Every creative idea deserves some yellow hat attention.
The Green Hat is specifically concerned with new ideas and new ways of looking at things. This hat stands for creativeness, alternatives, possibilities, proposals, new approaches, and possible changes.
