Creativity with Edward de Bono. The Six Hats, Six Coats Framework

Grant Czerepak

“You’ve come a long way baby.” — Virginia Slims

I have been attempting to come up with a means to communicate some of my insights without losing the heart of the Six Hats, Six Coats metaphor. I was sick of repeating the graphic without adding much more content. Finally, I have come up with the Six Hats, Six Coats Framework.

First, let’s refresh on what the Six Hats represent:

REVISE: Conceptualize. Expand Meaning. What are you enhancing or making right? Creativity.

RELATE: Contextualize. Focus on Uniqueness. What is your mantra? Relativity.

REPORT: Logicalize. Maximize Value. What are you normalizing to the limit? Optimicity.

RECORD: Physicalize. Minimize Cost. What is your business model? Pessimicity.

REFINE: Mechanicalize. Humanize Interaction. How do you lower the barriers to adoption? Anthropicity.

REPEAT: Operationalize. Synchronize. Increase Availability. How do you make yourself convenient? Synchronicity.

Second, lets refresh on what the Six Coats represent:

MOTIVE: Motivational. Why? Concepts affected.

LOCALE: Spatial. Where? Contexts affected.

OBJECT: Formal. What? Logics affected.

METHOD: Functional. How? Physics affected.

PERSON: Personal. Who? Humans affected.

MOMENT: Temporal. When? Synchrons affected.

Now, let’s look at some of our concepts in within the Six Hats, Six Coats Framework.

The first is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (rows) and the Zachman Focuses (columns):

Second is McLuhan’s Laws of Media (rows) and the Zachman Focuses (columns):

Third is Moffett’s Universe of Discourse (rows) and the Zachman Focuses (columns):

The Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom Model hierarchy (rows) and Zachman Focuses (columns):

Now, we are going to break the rules. Perhaps we will see something we hadn’t considered.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (rows) and Moffett’s Universe of Discourse (columns):

McLuhan’s Laws of Media (rows) and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (columns):

McLuhan’s Laws of Media (rows) and Moffett’s Universe of Discourse (columns):

Second last, “old reliable”, an abstract representation of the Zachman Framework:

Finally, one I call “Puzzles and Pieces”:

Hope you might see something new. It is sort of an ad nauseum excercise in search of a new pattern. Personally, I am reflecting on the similarity of multiple systems of thought about systems. “Puzzles and Pieces” was the outcome for me so far. The top three rows are the relationships above the individual entities (ie. Networks above Nodes) and the bottom three rows are the relationships below the individual entities (ie. Nodas below Nodes). I had to create some new terms for the focuses of the lower three rows.