Six Thinking Hats

I was watching TV this afternoon and was impressed by an interview of Edward de Bono. Yes, many of you may already know him, but I did not. He is the creator of "Six thinking Hats" concept. To me, it is a great tool for creative thinking (lateral thinking, think outside of the box). It let us analyze the topic in six different ways. I dug some more information from google images and some of them are selected here.

The benefits of Six Hats I understand now are:
1. Reduce the time of meeting. I have seen so many failed meetings where people talk and talk and they are going no where. Usually, one man talk proposes about a thing, and is interrupted by another man. The interruption might be comments, arguments, showing off that "I am better than you", etc. "Six hats" force everyone to think in parallel by wearing the same hat at the same time.
2. Explore every aspect of an idea (full-spectrum thinking).
3. Separating ego, Improving thinking, questioning, and communicating.

The order of hats depends on the situation. Here is a typical 6 hats workshop.
Step 1: Present the facts of the case ( White Hat))
Step 2: Generate ideas on how the case could be handled (Green Hat)
Step 3: Evaluate the merits of the ideas – List the benefits (Yellow Hat), List the drawbacks (Black Hat)
Step 4: Get everybody’s gut feelings about the alternatives (Red Hat)
Step 5: Summarize and adjourn the meeting (Blue Hat)

In addition to the application of six hats in brain storming workshop, I think it is great for improving individual thinking too. 

refs: Six Thinking Hats, more, even more