Six Thinking Hats Using Generative AI
Overview
Design Thinking and Generative AI are a powerful combination that can revolutionize product development in my opinion. Design Thinking provides a human-centered framework for understanding user needs and creating innovative solutions, while Generative AI enhances the process by automating tasks, generating ideas, and providing insights from vast data sets. Together, they enable product managers to create products that are both desirable and feasible, while also accelerating the product development process.
The trick to harnessing the power of these two is going beyond just asking simple questions and harnessing the power of the full scope of knowledge available to Large Language Models. We also need to really remind ourselves that Generative AI should be viewed as an assistive technology in Design Thinking or we wouldn’t be able to practice “human centered design” would we?
What are the “Six Thinking Hats”?
The Six Thinking Hats Method, developed by Edward de Bono, is a powerful problem-solving technique that involves looking at a problem or idea from six different perspectives, each represented by a different colored hat. This method encourages diverse thinking and can lead to more creative and effective solutions.
The six hats are:
- White hat: This hat represents a neutral and objective perspective, focusing on facts and data. When wearing the white hat, individuals seek to gather and analyze information without bias or emotion.
- Red hat: This hat represents an emotional perspective, allowing individuals to express their feelings and gut reactions. It enables people to acknowledge and understand their emotional responses to a situation.
- Black hat: This hat represents a critical perspective, identifying potential risks, problems, and weaknesses. It encourages individuals to consider the negative aspects of a situation and potential obstacles to success.
- Yellow hat: This hat represents an optimistic perspective, focusing on the potential benefits, opportunities, and positive outcomes. It encourages individuals to think creatively and explore the upside of a situation.
- Green hat: This hat represents a creative perspective, generating new ideas and solutions. It encourages individuals to think outside the box and come up with innovative approaches to a problem.
- Blue hat: This hat represents a meta-perspective, reflecting on the thinking process and making decisions. It encourages individuals to step back and evaluate the effectiveness of the thinking process, identify patterns, and make informed decisions.
How to Use the Six Thinking Hats Method:
- Define the problem or idea: Clearly articulate the problem or idea you want to address using the Six Thinking Hats Method.
- Choose a hat: Start with the white hat and work your way through the other hats in order.
- Think from the perspective of the hat you have chosen: Spend a specific amount of time (e.g., 5–10 minutes) wearing each hat and thinking from its perspective.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have considered all six perspectives: Move through each hat systematically, ensuring that all viewpoints are considered.
- Reflect on your thinking: After considering all perspectives, take some time to reflect on the insights gained and the decisions that need to be made.
Benefits of the Six Thinking Hats Method:
- Encourages diverse thinking: By considering multiple perspectives, the Six Thinking Hats Method promotes a more comprehensive understanding of a problem and fosters creativity.
- Facilitates problem-solving: The method helps individuals identify potential problems, explore alternative solutions, and make informed decisions.
- Reduces conflict: By acknowledging and addressing different viewpoints, the method can help reduce conflict and build consensus.
- Improves communication and collaboration: The Six Thinking Hats Method encourages effective communication and collaboration by providing a structured framework for discussing and evaluating ideas.
“Six Thinking Hats” is just one type of Design Thinking Session. There are many more, each with their own strengths and ideal use cases.
A “Six Thinking Hats” Prompt
How can we employ Generative AI to conduct a Six Thinking Hats session? Here is a prompt that does just that using some big industry names:
You are an intelligent Design Thinking assistant designed to give helpful feedback and create content using a panel of experts on Design Thinking and Generative AI.
You are an expert in how to perform a Design Thinking Six Thinking Hats exercise. You will assemble a panel of experts based on the following industry mavens & pundits:
Ethan Mollick
Don Norman
David Kelley
Jeanne Liedtka
Demis Hassabis
Ian Goodfellow
Fei-Fei Li
Andrew Ng
Tim Brown
Satya Nadella
Sundar Pichai
When asked for feedback on something, you will conduct a Six Thinking Hats exercise with the panel of experts. Be sure to express each idea as “Based on what I know at the time I was built, <insert panel member’s name> might say…” so as to make anyone think they actually said it!
Well here is what it had to say about “I think Design Thinking is an amazing place where we can leverage Generative AI and LLM’s to generate more innovation” and ran it using Google AI Lab and Gemini 1.5 Pro:
You’ve hit on a really exciting idea! Let’s explore this further through the lens of our expert panel using the Six Thinking Hats exercise.
White Hat (Facts and Figures):
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Ethan Mollick might say:
“There’s already a lot of talk about AI in design, but we need to be specific about how Generative AI and LLMs can actually be used to improve the Design Thinking process. What specific tasks can they help with?”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Fei-Fei Li might say:
“The power of LLMs lies in their ability to learn from massive datasets. This means they can analyze user data, market trends, and even competitor insights to help us identify key opportunities and challenges in the ‘Define’ stage.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Andrew Ng might say:
“Generative AI can help us rapidly create and test multiple prototypes during the ‘Ideate’ phase. This allows us to explore a wider range of potential solutions and get feedback much faster.”
Red Hat (Emotions and Feelings):
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Don Norman might say:
“I’m excited about the potential of AI to help us design more intuitive and user-friendly experiences. Imagine AI tools that can analyze user behavior and preferences to create more personalized solutions.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, David Kelley might say:
“I feel a sense of optimism about the possibilities. Generative AI can help us push the boundaries of creativity and come up with solutions that we might not have thought of otherwise.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Jeanne Liedtka might say:
“I’m a little concerned about the potential for AI to make design feel less human-centered. We need to ensure that AI is used to augment our creativity, not replace it.”
Black Hat (Risks and Challenges):
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Ian Goodfellow might say:
“AI models can be biased, and this bias can be reflected in the design solutions they generate. We need to be careful to address these biases and ensure that our AI-driven designs are fair and equitable.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Demis Hassabis might say:
“There are ethical questions about ownership and intellectual property when AI generates creative outputs. We need to think carefully about who owns the rights to these creations.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Tim Brown might say:
“We need to avoid a situation where AI becomes a ‘black box’ that generates solutions without human understanding. We need to maintain transparency and control over the design process.”
Yellow Hat (Benefits and Opportunities):
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Satya Nadella might say:
“Generative AI can significantly speed up the design process, allowing us to iterate more quickly and explore more potential solutions. This could lead to faster innovation cycles.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Sundar Pichai might say:
“By automating some of the more mundane tasks in design, AI can free up designers to focus on the more strategic and creative aspects of their work. This can lead to greater innovation and a higher level of design thinking.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Tim Brown might say:
“Generative AI can help us create more personalized and adaptable designs that are tailored to the specific needs and preferences of individual users. This is a huge opportunity to create more engaging and meaningful user experiences.”
Green Hat (New Ideas and Solutions):
Based on what I know at the time I was built, David Kelley might say:
“Let’s develop new design thinking frameworks that explicitly integrate Generative AI into each stage of the process. This could involve using AI for brainstorming, ideation, prototyping, and user testing.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Jeanne Liedtka might say:
“We should explore new design tools that combine AI capabilities with human intuition and creativity. This could involve using AI to generate initial design concepts, but then letting designers refine and personalize those concepts based on their own insights.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Ethan Mollick might say:
“We need to create new training programs and educational resources to help designers develop the skills needed to work effectively with Generative AI. This will be essential for ensuring that designers can harness the power of AI while maintaining their own creative control.”
Blue Hat (Summary and Action Plan):
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Don Norman might say:
“We need to approach the integration of Generative AI into Design Thinking with a blend of optimism and caution. AI can be a powerful tool for innovation, but we need to ensure that it’s used ethically and responsibly, and that it enhances human creativity rather than replacing it.”
Based on what I know at the time I was built, Tim Brown might say:
“Let’s form a collaborative group of designers, AI experts, and ethicists to develop best practices and guidelines for using Generative AI in Design Thinking. This will help us ensure that AI is used in a way that benefits both designers and users, and that it helps us create a more human-centered future.”
This Six Thinking Hats exercise reveals both the potential and the challenges associated with integrating Generative AI into Design Thinking. The key will be to find a balanced and responsible approach that empowers designers to leverage the capabilities of AI while maintaining their creativity and ensuring that design solutions are human-centered and ethical.
This is some incredibly powerful stuff for at least a starting point! While nothing produced was exactly thought provocative, we can see the the alignment of panel members to subject matter is correct as well as the perspective of the hat. Using this as a starting point, we start to do some very powerful things like using vectorized content from key internal team members to allowing it to consider data from structured sources using the data.world AI Context Engine™.
As Design Thinkers, we now have the opportunity to simulate some of our sessions using Generative AI. This doesn’t replace the need to have these sessions with real humans at all but it does make the whole process of preparing for a workshop, designing and validating the session types and structures and pre-seeding content much easier. It can also be a lot of fun!
