Critical and Creative Thinking Webinar - ASPE – SDLC
Transcript of Critical and Creative Thinking Webinar - ASPE – SDLC
Critical and Creative Thinking
How to Recharge Your BA Skills
Thinking Approaches
• Strategic Thinking
• Critical Thinking
• Creative Thinking
Strategic Thinking
Looking at a situation from a broad and long term future perspective to set a direction
Critical Thinking
The intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, or
evaluating information…as a guide to belief or action.
- Dr. Richard Paul, Director of Research at the Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique
Critical Thinking:Another Definition
Applying a process to open-ended, unstructured problems.
- Wolcott and Lynch
Critical Thinking Helps You:
• Make wise and reasoned decisions• Communicate more effectively• Identify root causes of problems• Determine how to solve critical business
problems and leverage opportunities• Work effectively with challenging
stakeholders and customers
Critical Thinking in 4 Steps
1. Identify the problem, the relevant information, and all the uncertainties about the problem.
2. Explore interpretations and connections.3. Prioritize alternatives and communicate
conclusions.4. Integrate, monitor, and refine strategies for
re-addressing the problem.
A Well-Cultivated Critical Thinker:
• Raises vital questions and problems clearly and precisely
• Gathers, assesses, and interprets relevant information and comes to well-reasoned conclusions
• Thinks open-mindedly; checks their ego• Communicates effectively with others
Adapted from The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools
Knowledge of a Critical Thinker
• Business knowledge beyond one’s own function• Understanding internal & external forces affecting
the business• Self awareness of one’s own limits and
qualifications• Knowledge of the business network (influence)• Knowledge of available resources (solutions)
Behaviors of a Critical Thinker
• Prioritizes issues properly by importance• Gathers and assesses relevant issues• Detects errors in reasoning• Evaluates evidences and makes proper inferences• Removes inconsistency and ambiguity• Listens carefully and explores new ideas• Willing to take unpopular stances• Communicates effectively to solve complex problems
Mindset of a Critical Thinker
• Fair and open-minded even with people one disagrees with
• Seeks the truth and the best action• Takes ownership in solving business problems• Willing to change one’s point of view• Examines ideas that may seem obvious
Critiquing Your Own Thinking
1. Clarify your thinking2. Stick to the point3. Question questions4. Be reasonable
Action Plan for Critical Thinking
• Identify one of your biggest strengths in critical thinking.
• Identify one of your biggest hurdles to your continued development in critical thinking.
• Write down an action that you will do to overcome that hurdle.
How to Stymie Your Critical Thinking
• Surround yourself with people who think like you; go along with your crowd
• Don’t question your relationships• Take critiques from others personally• Make excuses for personal failures• Be negative• Blame others• Focus on getting what YOU want
Overusing Critical Thinking
• Spending too much time debating and gathering information
• Asking too many questions and not focusing on relevant issues
• Over-reliance on too many perspectives• Challenging ideas in ways that stifle innovation
and frustrate others
Creative Thinking
Generating new ideas and concepts, as well as finding new associations between or new
applications of existing ideas and concepts.
- BABOK Guide, Version.2.0, Chapter 8.1.1
The Adjacent Possible
• Combining the existing into new results• Term coined by Stuart Kauffman• Requires diversity
What are you doing to encourageThe Adjacent Possible?
Liquid Networks
• Environments where ideas are allowed to flow and collide
• Need to balance order and chaos
How can you modify your environmentto incorporate characteristics
of a Liquid Network?
The Slow Hunch
• Events and information that are not acted upon due to a lack of supporting information
• Requires a dense Liquid Network to come to fruition
Can you think of a Slow Hunch that took a long time to be realized?
Error• Good ideas are more likely to emerge in
environments that contain a certain amount of noise and error.
• Problem: We tend to avoid error or dismiss them outright
How might your tendency to avoid error be stifling creativity in your business and
personal environments?
Clearing Your Mind
1. Employ the “rotation method”2. Get the picture3. Change the subject4. Embrace the unfamiliar5. Foretell the future
Adapted from Clearing the Mind for Creativity, by John Kao
Something to Try…
• At your next meeting, have each person bring a “supply” of some type (sticky notes, pens, paper clips, staples, etc.).
• Put them all in the middle of the conference room table.
• As a group (not independently), build the tallest structure you can within 5 minutes.
• Now see how the ideas flow!
References• Becoming a Critic of Your Thinking by Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul• The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, by Dr. Richard
Paul and Dr. Linda Elder• The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of Strategic Thinking: 25 Weeks to Better
Thinking and Better Living ,by Dr. Richard Paul and Dr. Linda Elder• CriticalThinking.org• Critical Thinking Process by Wolcott and Lynch• Clearing the Mind for Creativity by John Kao• Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven
Johnson• How to Get Ideas by Jack Foster• Cirque Du Soleil, The Spark: Igniting the Creative Fire that Lives Within Us
All by Lyn Heward and John U. Bacon
Thank you for joining us!
Questions?
How to Claim Your PDU
• Go to ccrs.pmi.org/• Search for ASPE as a Registered Education
Provider. Our number is 2161• At the bottom of our details page, select “See
Provider’s Activities”• Find the activity code stated by the moderator
during the presentation: WS013111 • The seminars are Category 3 for one PDU