More about training in…
Critical thinking and argumentation:
- Develop greater self-awareness when making judgments
- Learn about common pitfalls such as cognitive biases
- Get a deeper appreciation of different kinds of thought processes
- Sharpen skills in:
- analysing and evaluating evidence and arguments
- identifying assumptions
- extracting the gist of information
- making careful inferences from available information
- developing your own arguments and anticipating objections
- communicating arguments effectively.
Strategic thinking and problem solving:
- Focus on what it takes to ‘see the Big Picture’
- Analyse complex situations to understand their dynamics and to see connections to other issues
- Identify opportunities for action and anticipate challenges
- See the possibilities – generate ideas or hypotheses
- Assess different options to support sound decisions.
Structured analytic techniques:
Learn ways to think more systematically, thoroughly and rigorously when issues are complex and the stakes are high; e.g.:
- Scope The Range (STR) enables us to thoroughly explore the entire ‘solution space’ to uncover all possible hypotheses or potential solutions to a problem
- Argument Mapping enables us to marshal all arguments for and against before making a judgment, or to scrutinise reasoning in detail, bringing out important assumptions
- Analysis of Competing Hypotheses helps us evaluate information against different hypotheses simultaneously, avoiding premature over-commitment to one viewpoint
- Choice Matrices help us evaluate different options against set criteria
- Consequence Diagrams prompt us to consider far-reaching consequences of prospective actions or events
- Multiple Cause Diagrams and Influence Diagrams help us understand how situations come about and identify key features, including possible points of intervention
- A Stasis Matrix helps us find effective solutions to problems involving stakeholders with conflicting viewpoints
- Adversarial Collaboration helps break stalemates when there are competing viewpoints by identifying what information can resolve a disputed issue.
Client Testimonials
‘Well presented, informative. Many things I haven’t learnt in similar courses. Enjoyable because of lots of activities.’Intelligence analyst Australian government agency
‘I really enjoyed the course. In fact I would go further and say it is one of the best training courses I’ve done!’Analyst Department of Defence