Time Management
Useful Links
 
Not a
Member Yet?
The Mind Tools Career Excellence Club gives you the training, coaching and support you need to make a lasting success of your career. Take our FREE tour, and find out what it can do for you!
Recent Discussions:
 
Quick Start
 
Relevant
Courses & Resources
  Career Excellence
with a Mind Tools
Coach
 
 
Mind Tools Coach - Sharon Juden
 
 

Mind Tools Career Coaches give you the focused personal help you need to find direction, think through your goals, and make the very most of your life and career.

Find Out More >>

 
     
 

Mind Tools Ebook

 
 

 
 

The key tools on the Mind Tools site, brought together into one easily downloadable, easily printable PDF.

More>>

 
     

   Mind Tools
E-book
 
  


Mind Tools E-book

The key tools on the Mind Tools site, brought together into one easily downloadable, easily printable PDF.

More>>

Appreciation

Extracting Maximum Information from Facts

Appreciation is a very simple but powerful technique for extracting the maximum amount of information from a simple fact.

How to Use the Tool:

Starting with a fact, ask the question 'So what?' i.e. what are the implications of that fact? Keep on asking that question until you have drawn all possible inferences.

Example:

Appreciation is a technique used by military planners, so we will take a military example:

Fact: It rained heavily last night

So What?

– The ground will be wet

So What?

– It will turn into mud quickly

So What?

– If many troops and vehicles pass over the same ground, movement will be progressively slower and more difficult as the ground gets muddier and more difficult.

So What?

– Where possible, stick to paved roads. Otherwise expect movement to be much slower than normal.

While it would be possible to reach this conclusion without the use of a formal technique, Appreciation provides a framework within which you can extract information quickly, effectively and reliably.

Key points:

Asking 'so what?' repeatedly helps you to extract all important information implied by a fact.

MindTools.com - Join Our Community!

In our next article we look at Drill Down, a related technique that helps us break complicated problems down into simple parts.To read this, click "Next article" below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.

Spread the Word:

del.icio.us    Digg it    reddit    StumbleUpon
Where to go from here: Join Mind Tools Free Newsletter
  Download & Print Next Article
 
 

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

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) - Spotting problems early on*
TRIZ - A powerful methodology for creative problem-solving
The Straw Man Concept - Build it up, knock it down, create a solid final solution
Heuristic Methods - Using rules of thumb*
Writing a Procedure - Making sure things are done without mistakes and omissions.
Swim Lane Diagrams - Mapping and improving organizational processes*
5 Whys - Getting quickly to the root of a problem
Root Cause Analysis - Tracing a problem to its origins
Using Aides Memoire - Remember everything that's important*
CATWOE - Understanding the different elements that contribute to a problem*
Inductive Reasoning - Drawing good generalized conclusions*
Avoiding Logical Fallacies - What they are, and how to avoid them*

A full list of Mind Tools articles is available here.

return to top

Learn to manage the stress in your life with our sister site, stress.mindtools.com.

Mind Tools Store: Mind Tools Ebook, Make Time for Success
 Stress Management Masterclass, How to Lead, Design Your Life
 Relaxation MP3s

© Mind Tools Ltd, 1995-2008, All Rights Reserved

For requests to reprint or reproduce material from this site, please contact our Permissions Center.

Store · Search · Newsletter · Downloads · Advertisers · Affiliates

MindTools.com is one of the Internet's most-visited career skills resources.
Click here to see analysis.

Mind Tools
Free E-Newsletter
New Career Skills - twice a month PLUS Planning Workbook Free!
Subscribe to our free e-newsletter, and get new skill-builder tools every two weeks. Plus get our Personal Development Plan Workbook worth US$19.99 free when you subscribe!
"Great newsletter. Simple and not too long. Great articles. Thank you."
Mandi J Luis, Burlington, Ontario, Canada
First name
Email
Privacy Policy
 
What People Say
About Mind Tools...

"All I can say is WOW! This is one of the best managerial tool sites I have encountered. It is nice to find pertinent material in such volumes, and that is SO EASY to read and understand."

Marianne Darden,
RN, MSN, MS,
CNOR, CNA, CLNC

"Of all the sites that I have visited on the net, this is the most exciting and useful so far. I am so happy that I discovered it. Keep up the very beautiful work that you are doing."

Caleb Muchungu,
Malawi

"I have used many of your ebooks and downloads for the past couple of years and continue to gain great insight into helping me develop my own as well as other people's skills... My most sincere thanks to you and your team for helping me reach my true potential."

David Snelders,
Leicester, UK.

 
 
What Bugs You?
Let us know about anything wrong, or anything you don't like about this site, and you could win a US$50 Amazon voucher!
 
Sponsored Links



Search Now:
In Association with Amazon.com