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Critical Thinking

Developing the Skills for Successful Thinking

How often do you think about how you think? For most people, the answer is "not very often". And yet every day we each make decisions, generate ideas, draw conclusions, evaluate other people's opinions and so on. These are things that often need careful thought.

Even when using tools and techniques to help with this, we tend to think about specific techniques of 'decision making' or 'idea generation' rather than the wider process of thinking. These techniques are very helpful, but sometimes things can fall between the cracks: If you use an incorrect assumption when you evaluate something, your final conclusion may be flawed. If you allow your emotions to cloud your analysis, you risk making a biased decision. If you don't have all the facts, you may miss the best solution. And if you unthinkingly accept what you hear or read from other people, you risk being manipulated.

That's where critical thinking comes in.

Critical thinking is the discipline of rigorously and skillfully using information, experience, observation and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions and beliefs.

Critical thinking means...(Sign in to read more.)

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Developing Your Critical Thinking Skills

here are also many other tools and techniques at Mind Tools that help you think rationally and critically. Remember that critical thinking means choosing the right thinking process, and ensuring you use it rigorously and completely. Think before you think, and choose the best tools and techniques for each situation. Explore the tools below to find out how they can help you:

• Cause and Effect Diagrams - Identifying likely causes of problems
  
• Impact Analysis - Exploring the possible consequences of a decision
  
• Appreciation - Extracting maximum information from facts
  
• Drill-Down - Breaking problems down into manageable parts
  
• Systems Diagrams - Understanding how factors affect each other
  
• Paired Comparison Analysis - Working out the relative importance of different options
  
• Grid Analysis - Making a choice taking into account many factors
  
• Decision Trees - Choosing by valuing different options
  
• PMI - Weighing the pros and cons of a decision
  
• Six Thinking Hats - Looking at a decision from different perspectives

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New Articles (Not included in the Mind Tools E-book.)
* Shows articles available in full only to Career Excellence Club members

Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) - Choosing by weighing up many subjective factors
Reactive Decision Making - Making good decisions under pressure*
Spiral Dynamics - Understanding how people's values affect decision making*
The Ladder of Inference - Avoiding "jumping to conclusions"*
Blindspot Analysis - Avoiding common "fatal flaws" in decision making*
Monte Carlo Analysis - Bringing uncertainty and risk into forecasting*
The Kepner-Tregoe Matrix - Making unbiased, risk assessed decisions*
Impact Analysis - Identifying the "unexpected" consequences of a decision*
Avoiding Groupthink - Avoiding fatal flaws in group decision making*
Decision Making - Are you "cautious" or "courageous"? *
The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model - Deciding how to decide*

A full list of Mind Tools articles is available here.

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