Six Sigma Six Thinking Hats

8/8/2019 Six Sigma Six Thinking Hats

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Six Thinking Hats Version 1.0

Six Thinking Hats Application in Six Sigma

Six Thinking Hats An Overview

Six Thinking Hats, a thinking Tool Kit developed by Edward De Bono, is a convenient way ofputting into practice Parallel Thinking, which is totally different from an argument. The key tosuccessful parallel thinking lies in taking charge of the thought process and guiding it to onedirection at a time. The Six Thinking Hats method is revolutionary because it helps lay out allopinions side by side and zero in on a way forward, without any argument.

Focused thinking in a common direction speeds up the decision making process and takesadvantage of the individual uniqueness that each person brings to the challenge. This is the keyto innovative suggestions and potential solutions. Six Thinking Hats serves as a dissection toolallowing users to dissect the information into feelings, caution, benefits and ideas to arrive at anoptimal solution.

There are six imaginary thinking hats, each having a different color. Each of the six hatsrepresents different type of thinking. When you put on one of the hats, you operate exclusively inthat mode of thinking.

Six Thinking Hats in Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a methodology for improving the capability of a process or reducing variability withina process. In any Six Sigma project if the Six Thinking Hats method is used, the intelligence,experience and knowledge of the entire project team are fully utilized before arriving at anydecision.

Since, everyone associated with a Six Sigma project is looking and working towards the samegoal, using the Six Thinking Hats technique, during a Six Sigma project can save time in takingdecisions, speed up deliberations by removing ego problems and ensure that the subject inquestion is explored fully.

In short, Six Thinking Hats is a technique for stimulating and generating innovative ideas andsolutions which can ease traffic jams caused by bumper to bumper thoughts and help improve theoverall potential of Six Sigma in business improvement and development.

The Six Hats and their application in Six Sigma

Here is how one can use the Six Hats in Six Sigma improvement projects:

White Hat

The White Hat is like a white paper and deals with data and information. This hat assesses therelevance and accuracy of information, separates facts from speculation and notes both viewswhen there is conflicting information.

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Having a White Hat session before starting a Six Sigma project will go a long way in helpingcreate a strong business case for projects. By providing accurate and relevant data, the projectteam can get a quicker buy in from the sponsors and other stakeholders. It will also help sponsorscritically analyze the business case. We can also use the "Need to know" of a White Hat to arriveat the detailed project scope. This will help the project team focus on the correct area.

For example in a Six Sigma Project, the White Hat session during the Measure phase will help usa lot in creating data collection forms and defining specification limits for the selected outputcharacteristics. Availability of data will help us set realistic and realizable targets.

Red Hat

The Red Hat deals with feelings, emotions and intuitions. Feelings may be based on experienceand cannot always be quantified. But they can, nevertheless, be valuable ingredients in adiscussion. The Six Thinking Hats system gives feelings a significant place during the explorationof a subject.

The sponsor can put on the Red Hat while talking about the goal of the project and validating thesame, though it may not be the only condition to validate the goal. Customers putting on the RedHat can provide us with potential Six Sigma projects and a White Hat session should beconducted later on to delve deeper into the problem.

For example in a Six Sigma Project, the Red Hat session can be a way for the customer toexpress himself in situations where he/she feels something is wrong, but cannot support theconcern with suitable data.

The Red Hat thoughts are subject to change. For instance, the customer 's feelings can changefrom time to time. A White Hat session can also change the outcome of a Red Hat session. Andsince the White Hat session contains information or data, the data portion of a Six Sigma projectcan be used to translate the Voice of Customer.

Green Hat

The Green Hat encourages creativity and demands the person wearing the hat to look for newideas and alternatives or modify and remove faults in existing ideas. The Green Hat is used tolook for possibilities even if they are remote thereby encouraging all participants to be creative.

The Green Hat session if coupled with Lateral Thinking techniques, can be a very powerful tool inthe Improve phase when we are searching for solutions. It helps us tap the creative potential of allteam members in the Six Sigma projects team and sets up a micro culture of creativity.

For example, the Improve phase of the Six Sigma Project can start with a Green Hat session toidentify solutions. Lateral Thinking tools like PO and Random word can be used to generate ideasand then Harvesting used to pick up specific ideas. Also in improve phase, Lateral Thinkingtechniques like Challenge can be used to develop alternatives for the solution, fine-tune newprocesses and curtail unnecessary cost from the proposed solutions.



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Black Hat

The role of the Black Hat session is to point out areas of improvement in the outcome of different

thought processes. It highlights the points of caution, existing and potential risks and concerns.The Black Hat session is a powerful, effective and essential ingredient in the thought process.

Whether it is a business case, a cost benefit analysis or causal analysis of potential reasonsunder 5 M and 1P, the Black Hat session will appraise us of the potential problems and risks.Having a Green Hat session after a Black Hat session will help in arriving at a better solution ortake better decisions.

For example in a Six Sigma project, during the Define phase, we can use a Six Thinking Hatssession to classify the VOC into Black Hats and Green Hats. We can treat the outcome of a BlackHat session with a Green Hats session and identify solutions. If Green Hats are in majority, itmight point to DMADV project rather than DMAIC. We can use Black Hats along with their triggerslike caution, risks, problems, difficulties and speculation to develop and fine-tune the businesscase.

Yellow Hat

The Yellow Hat represents the logical and positive aspects of thinking. The Yellow Hat sessionlooks for benefits and return on investment of a particular solution. It reinforces the creative ideasand looks for new directions. The Yellow Hat session complements the Black Hat session.

The Yellow Hat session can help in defining a better business case. The same holds true for theImprove phase where a chosen solution needs to be justified against competing ideas. TheYellow Hat session can identify the differences, which are otherwise not visible. In a Six Sigmaproject, the Yellow Hat Session can be used on the goal achieved during the Control phase to

justify the cost involved in the project. We can also use a Green or Yellow Hat session to unearthother improvement opportunities.

Blue Hat

The Blue Hat session deals with process control. The Blue Hat session manages the thoughtprocess itself and plays the role of a facilitator. Any member of the group can wear Blue Hat.

The Master Black Belt typically wears a Blue Hat in Six Sigma Projects. The tollgate reviewsserve as check points where the Master Black Belt reviews the project progress and findings. TheBlue Hat session helps the Six Sigma project team to think in a focused manner and get the bestout of all the participants.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the integration of Six Thinking Hats with Six Sigma methodology willhelp the overall potential of Six Sigma in business improvement and development. With theSix Thinking Hats methodology, doing one thing at a time is encouraged. There is a time whenthe project team is on the lookout for risks and areas of improvement (Black Hat). Similarly,there is a time when they look for new ideas (Green Hat) and there is a time when the focus is



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on information (White Hat). Everything is not done at the same time. This helps bring in clarityin thought processes during the course of a Six Sigma project and helps teams come up withbest-in-class solutions.

Reference:

1. Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono

2. Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas by Edward De Bono


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Six Sigma Six Thinking Hats