Facilitated Thinking Technology

As technology evolves, it is no longer as important how much you personally remember, but rather how quickly you can access the right information and right cognitive tools. MBA Mentor is a 475 page hypertext MS Word wikipedia-like application. It contains cognitive tools, called Thinklets, that represents best practices and tools distilled from over 25,000 pages of information.

This self-mentoring product is designed to be used on-demand as if you had a human mentor or consultant working directly with you. It functions by delivering the right cognitive tools (thinklets) to use for the most common critical thinking work tasks.

MindSights

MBA Mentor

Main Menu (Home) toc TOCMainMenu

1. Instructions & Navigations

2. Project Consultants (Critical Thinking Processes)

3. Thinklets Tool Sets (Thinking Functions)

4. Question Sets (Thinking Tasks)

5. Facilitative Management & Leadership

6. Alphabetical Order of Thinklets

2. Virtual Project Consultants (Critical Thinking Processes)

Like using human consultants, these virtual consultants provide you with the critical questions to ask and tools to use, all within the correct thinking sequence.critical TOCType

Project work efforts (critical thinking) in business and organizations

typically have one of the following 7 aims.

Click on blue links

Virtual Consultant	Critical Thinking Purpose/Aim
Basic (90-minute) Problem Solving	Resolve an urgent problem, issue or challenge.
Corrective Action Problem Solving (RCA)	Fix or correct a problem by restoring it to a past, standard or original condition.
Systems Problem Solving	Resolve a complex cross-functional or organizational problem.
Creativity & Innovation	Brainstorm and develop something new and of value that has never existed before.
Improvement	Improve upon current levels of performance (process, product, service).
Planning	Anticipate and prepare for future opportunities or imminent problems.
Decision Making	Select a course of action among alternatives.

3. Thinklets Tool Sets (Thinking Functions)

It’s no longer as important how much you remember … but rather how quickly you can access cognitive tools to help improve thinking performance.addendumtools

Like any manual tool, performance is based on choosing the right tool for the task-at-hand. Find the tool you need and then consider customizing with your own knowledge.

1. Observe and become aware of problems & opportunities

2. Define and describe the problem or situation.

3. Analyze and understand the details.

4. Create and innovate something new or different

5. Systems Think the whole problem or situation

6. Tap into Subconscious thinking

7. Decision making tools

8. Project management tools

4. Question Sets (Thinking Tasks) rightquestion

Asking the right questions gives the mind the best

chance of finding the right answers.

Use these question sets to find the right questions to ask.

Forty Basic Thinking Tasks forty

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.
…	…

5. Facilitative Management & Leadership

mgmt \

Facilitative Leaders & Managers maximize contributions in two primary ways:

1) Increase employee’s natural thinking productivity and effectiveness.

2) Facilitate good group interactions and relationships.

Use the following basic management and leadership functions to find the right tools and questions to ask that stimulate individual and group productivity of thought.

Click on blue links

Basic Function	Purpose/Aim
Team Building	Build and maintain a high performance team and work environment.
Goal Setting	Set meaningful goals that are achievable.
Project Management	Execute project objectives (quality, on time, and within budget).
Time Management	Find ways to improve use of both work and personal time.

6. Alphabetical Order

alpha

Review the list for tools that might help with a thinking task. Blue links are active links. If there is a tool you want to use, simply copy and paste it to your document or agenda.

Action Work Plan	Action plan development represents the critical stage in planning when general strategies and goals are made specific and aligned with resources.
Affinity Diagram	It is a method of capturing tacit knowledge about a particular issue and organizing large numbers of data into manageable groupings of information.
Analogies	Analogies provide a thought process of converting the strange into the familiar that generates creative ideas and solutions.
Assemble a High Performance Team	Getting the right mix of people with complimentary skills can greatly enhance a team’s effectiveness.
…

toolmenu