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Thinklets are cognition tools that enhance natural human thinking abilities. They function much like human consultants who provide intellectual guidance. Thinklets can be as simple as a power question, a small template with embedded facilitator questions, or a thinking technique.

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Find Thinklets By:

1. Instructions & Navigation

2. Critical Thinking Work Tasks - Consultants

3. Common Thinking Functions - Thinklets

4. Forty Basic Thinking Tasks – Question Sets

5. Alphabetical Order of Thinklets

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4. Forty Thinking Tasks - Questions

The #1 way to improve personal and team thinking effectiveness is by asking the right questions. The right questions give the mind the best chance of finding the right answers. Click on a thinking task you or your team is working on. Determine if any of questions are critical to ask.

Forty Basic Thinking Tasks

1	Describe Situation or Problem	Describe the current situation, problem or opportunity.
2	Assess Importance	Assemble an evaluation team to assess the criticalness of the situation.
3	Align with Objectives	Identify key factors that drive organizational or personal success.
4	Observe other Problems	Look beyond the current situation for other potential problems or opportunities.
5	Prioritize Problems	Select the most critical problem or opportunity to work on.
6	Problem Statement	Validate the real problem and write a problem statement.
7	Systems Think	Systems think the problem or situation in a broader context.
8	Transient Statement	Write a transient (change) statement on how the problem came about.
9	Purposes Determine	Determine reasons and purposes for solving this problem.
10	Goal Statement	Write a goal statement that clarifies the desired outcome.
11	Feasibility of Work	Determine the feasibility of the work effort to resolve the situation.
12	Build Team	Build a high performance work team.
13	Communication Process	Establish a project communication process.
14	Data Gathering Strategy	Develop a data gathering strategy.
15	Define Facts	Define the current situation or problem state.
16	Analyze Causes	Analyze causes and find a root cause.
17	Future Facts	Define future facts as they “should exist” in the goal state.
18	Obstacles	Identify obstacles that prevent reaching the goal state.
19	Solution Requirements	Define requirements for inclusion in any proposed idea/solution.
20	Idea Generation Strategy	Select an idea generation strategy.
21	Incubate	Prepare the mind for creativity.
22	Creative Ideas/Solutions	Generate lots of ideas and solutions.
23	Categorize & Synthesize	Narrow your choices by categorizing and synthesizing ideas.
24	Refine Pros & Cons	Refine ideas into practical solution alternatives.
25	Evaluation Criteria	Develop the evaluation criteria to judge solution alternatives
26	Decision Strategy	Choose a decision-making strategy.
27	Decide on Solution	Select the solution to implement.
28	Futures Statement	Write a future solution statement.
29	Timeliness to Implement	Decide if it is the right time to implement the solution.
30	Design Deliverables	Design the solution deliverables.
31	Change Management	Institute a change management process
32	Test Deliverables	Test the solution to uncover fatal flaws.
33	Implementation Plan	Develop an implementation work plan.
34	Contingency plan	Develop contingency plans.
35	Action plan	Implement and monitor the work plan.
36	Launch Solution	Develop a conversion plan and launch solution.
37	Feedback	Develop feedback to prevent recurrences.
38	Backup & Recovery	Determine backup and disaster recovery needs.
39	Lessons Learned	Review project results and document lessons learned.
40	Detach Work	Celebrate, reward and detach the project.

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#	Tasks	Description and Key Questions
1 T1	Describe Situation or Problem	Write a short background description of the current situation. Determine if the situation is a problem, opportunity or issue. Who is involved with this problem? Who is the problem owner? Who is affected most by the situation/problem? What factors do you think have contributed most to the situation? What are the problem’s key assumptions? Where is the problem most (or least) noticeable? When will the problem get better (or worse)? Why hasn't the problem already been solved? How will you know when you have resolved the situation/problem?

	….
8 t8	Transient Statement	Write a transient statement that describes how the current situation came into existence. What are you doing differently now compared to what you were doing before? Have changes occurred recently for which there was no adjustment made? What standards, performance measures, policies or practices have been violated? What caused the problem? When did the problem start and where did it come from?

9 T10

Goal Statement

Write a goal statement that describes the desired outcome or what the problem will look like after it has been resolved. · Consider writing the goal statement starting with the words: “How can I/we …” or “In what way might I/we…” · Will accomplishment of this goal solve in part or in whole the stated problem? · If the goal is not measured, how will you know when you have reached it? · Is the scope of the goal sufficiently limited to make it solvable? · Are you sure that this is the final goal and not an intermediate objective? · What objectives need setting to show a clear path and progress toward reaching the goal?

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Write a transient statement on how the problem came aboutq8

Why Use It

Developing a statement that describes how the current problem came about will initiate identification of the driving forces impacting the problem. Knowing how the problem came about (changes) can significantly help find root causes. Note: This is sometimes called a ‘Transient Statement”.

What Changed	Answers
What events led up to the present situation?
What triggers the situation?
What change was made just before the problem or situation started?
What things are being done differently now than they were done before?
What successful actions stopped or dropped off?
When did the problem start and where did it come from?
What are the ‘constants’ about the situation that cannot change?
What is assumed to be true but isn’t?
What is assumed to be untrue but really is true?
Who/what was involved when the problem started that should not have been involved?
Who/what left the situation just before it started?
Have changes occurred that people have not been adjusted to?
What person was hired or got involved just before things changed? Is someone making sweeping changes?
How has the workload shifted? Are priorities shifting?
….