Critical Thinking and Structured Analytical TEchniques
Consider all the options before you make the investment or lose reputation
Got a great idea?
- Does all the team agree it's a great idea?
- Are you ready to 'push the button' on spending money on the idea?
- Ready to commit your and your organisations reputation on the idea?
•People perceive what they expect to perceive
•Mind-sets form quickly and change slowly
•People tend to overestimate the accuracy of their judgements.
What people perceive, how readily they perceive it, and how they process this information after receiving it are all strongly influenced by past experience, education, cultural values, role requirements, and organisational norms, as well as by the specifics of the information received.
Dick Heuer (Head of the CIA's Methodology Unit) observed three fundamental points about the cognitive challenges humans face:
Dick Heuer (Head of the CIA's Methodology Unit) observed three fundamental points about the cognitive challenges humans face:
- The mind is poorly "wired" to deal effectively with both inherent uncertainty (the natural fog surrounding complex, indeterminate issues) and induced uncertainty (the man-made fog fabricated by denial and deception by opposition).
- Even increased awareness of cognitive and other "unmotivated" biases, such as the tendency to see information confirming an already-held judgement more vividly than one sees "disconfirming" information, does little by itself to help humans deal effectively with uncertainty.
- Tools and techniques that gear the person's mind to apply higher levels of critical thinking can substantially improve analysis on complex issues on which information is incomplete, ambiguous, and often deliberately distorted. Key examples of such intellectual devices include techniques for structuring information, challenging assumptions, and exploring alternative interpretations.
- Idea Generation - intended for the purpose of eliciting or generating ideas at the very early stage of a project. A group or team using a structured analytic technique is usually more effective than a single individual in generating new ideas and in synthesising divergent ideas. The structured process helps identify differences in perspective and different assumptions among team or group members, and thus stimulates learning and new ideas.
Scenario and Indicators - used in complex, evolving, uncertain situations where the future is not easily predicable. Some events are intrinsically of low predictability. Scenarios are plausible and provocative stories about how the future might unfold. When alternative futures have been clearly outlined, decision makers can mentally rehearse these futures and ask themselves, “What should I be doing now to prepare for these futures?”
Hypothesis Generation and Testing - assessing multiple options to find the optimal or best answer, rather than being satisfied with the first answer that seems adequate, and avoiding the reliance on intuitive judgement.
Assessment of Cause and Effect - Our techniques avoids the cognitive limitations and common errors in the perception of cause and effect, to settle for the first probable cause that is come across.
Challenge Analysis - A set of analytic techniques that have also been called contrarian analysis, alternative analysis, competitive analysis, red team analysis, and devil’s advocacy. What all of these have in common is the goal of challenging an established mental model or analytic consensus in order to broaden the range of possible explanations or estimates that are seriously considered.
Decision Support - Decision-support techniques help overcome the cognitive limitation of vacillation or procrastination in making a firm decision by laying out all the options and interrelationships in graphic form so that people can test the results of alternative options while still keeping the problem as a whole in view. Other techniques help decision makers untangle the complexity of a situation or define the opportunities and constraints in the environment in which the choice needs to be made.
The cone of plausibility is a good example of a Horizon Scanning scenario planning technique used by Sprianto. It was developed at Houston University, and adapted for use by the UK Ministry of Defence. A range of scenarios are developed from a series of drivers and assumptions that are identified. The scenarios are based on the most likely pathways as well as the more extreme or less likely future pathways. The cone of plausibility can be used to look at short, medium or long-term futures, but is particularly suited to short-term horizons where there are a limited number of drivers. The technique enables analysts to produce a clear and robust audit trail towards their scenarios, presenting the evidence base throughout.
If your about to make some big or expensive decisions utilise Spiranto to work up ideas and scenarios with your team, provide probable outcomes and provide structured decision support that steers you clear of potentially costly biases or mistakes.
If your about to make some big or expensive decisions utilise Spiranto to work up ideas and scenarios with your team, provide probable outcomes and provide structured decision support that steers you clear of potentially costly biases or mistakes.
