Evaluate solutions for workplace problem

Critical thinking requires time and patience. You won’t become a critical thinker overnight. To develop these skills, start by learning various critical thinking techniques. These techniques help you analyse situations using facts and available information. They enable you to see the bigger picture, connect different pieces of information, and come up with effective solutions.

Critical thinking techniques can include:

Ask focused questions

•  These require researched and precise answers.
•  They help you define terms, recall facts, and organise data.
• Focused questions give you targeted answers and specific information.

Ask follow-up questions when answers are not clear

• Not everyone will provide clear answers the first time.
• Follow-up questions help you elaborate and clarify details.

Considering the perspectives of others

To understand what’s happening in your workplace, ask for the thoughts and opinions of your colleagues. This can lead to better and more creative solutions for your workplace problems by providing different perspectives.

It helps you practice analysing different backgrounds and viewpoints and can lead to new ideas and insights. It also allows for diverse perspectives which can produce more comprehensive and innovative solutions.

Gathering and analysing information helps you avoid assumptions and develop critical thinking. To do this you can:

• Collect different sources of information on a topic.
• Crosscheck the information to see which is more widely accepted.
• Identify which information is reliable and which is not.
• Practice distinguishing trustworthy sources from unreliable ones.

This process helps you avoid making assumptions and it helps you synthesise reliable information to inform yourself or update your existing knowledge.

Watch

Check out the following video that talks about simple ways to sharpen your critical thinking skills

Critical thinking skills help you make knowledgeable and rational decisions. They allow you to analyse situations using facts and information, avoiding biases and personal feelings.  

Here are some key critical and creative thinking skills and methods to develop each skill:

Identify the problem

Steps

• Ask questions to pinpoint the specifics of the situation.
• Understand the system behind the problem, including its causes, effects, and the people affected.
• Identify trends and patterns related to the problem.

Example: If the problem is a lack of training for new hires causing delays, your team should meet to brainstorm solutions. Respect and consider the perspectives of all team members to develop comprehensive ideas.

Doing research on facts

Steps

• Cross-check information to ensure reliability.
• Use credible sources.
• Gather information that will help address and solve the problem.

Analysis of information

Steps

• Critically judge the value and credibility of information.
• Prove its reliability before using it.
• Avoid using information without considering its trustworthiness.

Open-Mindedness in coming up with ideas

Steps

• Respect and be open to new ideas.
• Avoid reacting negatively to different opinions.
• Listen to others' opinions to gather varying ideas and learn new information.

Remember that open-mindedness helps you avoid biases and allows for a broader range of ideas and solutions during brainstorming sessions.

An advantage of learning critical thinking techniques and skills is that they can be used to develop solutions to workplace problems. These techniques not only enhance how you process information, but they help you boost your problem-solving abilities as well. You can use critical thinking techniques to generate solutions to your selected workplace problems by:

• Identifying issues in your workplace: Before developing a solution for any workplace problem, you need to first identify the issues. Critical thinking techniques can help you focus on the problems that need attention and gather relevant information. These techniques also assist in brainstorming potential solutions, saving you time in the process.
• Breaking down information: Critical thinking helps you break down information into smaller, manageable parts. This makes it easier to understand and analyse each aspect of the problem, such as its causes, duration, and severity.
• Seeing new perspectives: Critical thinking encourages you to consider different viewpoints. Instead of seeing a problem as just one-dimensional, think of it as having multiple facets. This approach helps you maintain an unbiased view and understand various perspectives, allowing you to see the problem more comprehensively and flexibly.

Aside from using critical thinking techniques, involve your team in developing solutions. Your team members have valuable insights from their own experiences in the workplace. They know what works and what doesn’t and can suggest improvements. By including them in problem-solving, you'll create more practical and realistic solutions.

The Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing model, developed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, describes the stages that teams typically go through as they develop and work together. Here’s a brief overview of each stage:

Forming

This is the initial stage where team members get to know each other and understand the team's goals and roles.

Characteristics:

• Team members are polite and cautious.
• There is a lot of uncertainty about roles, tasks, and how to work together.
• Leaders often provide direction and structure.

Storming

In this stage, conflicts and disagreements arise as team members start to express their individual opinions and challenge each other.

Characteristics:

• There may be conflicts over roles, responsibilities, and leadership.
• Team members test boundaries and push for their ideas.
• This stage can be uncomfortable but is crucial for team development.

Norming

The team starts to establish norms and standards for working together. They begin to resolve conflicts and develop cohesion.

Characteristics:

• Team members start to collaborate more effectively.
• There is a sense of unity and shared goals.
• Team roles and processes become clearer and more accepted.

Performing

The team reaches optimal functioning, with high levels of collaboration, productivity, and effectiveness.

Characteristics:

• The team works seamlessly towards achieving its goals.
• Members are confident in their roles and responsibilities.
• The focus is on achieving results and continuous improvement.

Adjourning (or Mourning):

This stage occurs when the team disbands after achieving its goals or completing the project.

Characteristics:

• Team members reflect on their accomplishments and experiences.
• There may be a sense of loss or transition as the team parts ways.

Understanding these stages helps teams navigate their development process and work through challenges effectively.

Watch

Takea look at Tuckman's 5 Stages of Team Development (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Re-forming)

Developing solutions

To develop solutions effectively with your team, focus on teamwork, communication, and collaboration. Here’s how to manage this process:

Identify boundaries

Set limits for generating ideas to ensure they are appropriate and feasible.  

This includes:

• Check what resources you have for the project to make sure your ideas are practical.
• Follow familiar processes to avoid confusion and ensure efficiency.
• Understand the project’s requirements and conditions to guide your ideas and ensure they meet the project’s needs.

By respecting these boundaries, you can generate solutions that are realistic, effective, and aligned with your project's goals.

Methods

Brainstorming solutions with your team

• Let each team member brainstorm solutions
  • Encourage everyone to think of multiple solutions to the problem.
  • Ensure that solutions are compatible and work well together.

Creative thinking techniques

Storyboarding:

• Organise and visually display ideas on a wall using papers and cards.
• Ideal for small groups (5-8 people) or large groups divided into smaller teams.
• Use a quiet room with clear walls and a skilled facilitator.

Brainstorming ways to improve existing solutions:

• Write ideas down on a bulletin board:
  • Allow team members to post their ideas and build on each other’s suggestions.
• Conduct buzz sessions:
  • Hold short, interactive sessions to gather feedback and ideas from team members.
• Stop and go brainstorming:
  • Brainstorm solutions for ten minutes, then evaluate the ideas as a group.

Other than brainstorming, here are some common forms of teamwork:

• Collaborative problem-solving:
  • Definition: Team members work together to solve a problem by combining their expertise and perspectives.
  • How It Works: Teams discuss and analyse problems, develop strategies, and implement solutions together.
• Workshops:
  • Definition: Structured sessions where team members engage in activities to learn, solve problems, or develop new ideas.
  • How It Works: Workshops include exercises, discussions, and group work to address specific topics or goals.
• Team Meetings:
  • Definition: Regularly scheduled gatherings where team members share updates, discuss progress, and plan future actions.
  • How It Works: Meetings can be used to review tasks, align goals, and address any issues as a group.
• Peer Reviews:
  • Definition: Team members review and provide feedback on each other’s work.
  • How It Works: This process helps improve quality and ensures that work meets team standards.
• Role Playing:
  • Definition: Team members act out scenarios to explore different perspectives and solutions.
  • How It Works: Role playing helps in understanding different viewpoints and practising responses to various situations.
• Group Decision-Making:
  • Definition: A collaborative process where the team makes decisions together rather than individually.
  • How It Works: Teams discuss options, weigh pros and cons, and reach a consensus on decisions.
• Mentoring and Coaching:
  • Definition: Experienced team members guide and support others to develop their skills and knowledge.
  • How It Works: Mentors and coaches provide advice, share experiences, and help others improve their performance.
• Pair Work:
  • Definition: Two team members work together on a task or project.
  • How It Works: Pair work allows for focused collaboration and immediate feedback between two people.

Each of these methods promotes effective teamwork and can be used depending on the needs of the project or team.

Watch

Have a look at the following video that talks about brainstorming techniques and how to innovate in groups.

Explaining how you arrived at your solution is key to assessing its feasibility. Once your team has chosen a problem and each member has developed a solution, you should all discuss how you came to your conclusions. This step is important because:

• Understanding: It helps team members see your thought process and rationale behind your solution.
• Teamwork: It encourages collaboration by involving everyone in sharing their approach and ideas.

This discussion ensures that all team members are on the same page and promotes effective teamwork.

Sharing development process  

Sharing how you developed your solution helps build trust and teamwork. When you explain the steps you took, decisions you made, and reasons behind them, you make your process clear to everyone. This transparency allows your team to understand how you reached your solution and gives everyone a chance to give feedback. It also helps ensure that everyone is on the same page and can work together effectively.

Here are some common methods to share your development process with your team:

Developing applicable criteria that will help evaluate solutions

After discussing how each team member arrived at their solution, the next step is to choose the best solution. To do this, your team needs to agree on how to evaluate each solution. This involves creating criteria to determine which solution is the best.

Characteristics of good criteria:

• Relevant: Criteria should directly relate to the problem and the goals of the solution.
• Specific: Criteria should be clear and precise, making it easy to measure and compare solutions.
• Objective: Criteria should be unbiased and based on facts, not personal opinions.
• Achievable: Criteria should be realistic and attainable given the resources and constraints.
• Consistent: Criteria should be applied uniformly to all solutions to ensure a fair comparison.

For example, if you’re evaluating solutions for a new phone, your criteria might include performance, price, quality, and design. Make sure these criteria reflect what is most important for solving the problem at hand.

When evaluating solutions, consider these common factors to create effective criteria:

• Team objectives: Make sure your criteria align with what your team aims to achieve. The criteria should reflect your team’s goals and desired outcomes.
• Simplicity: Ensure the criteria are simple and easy to understand. Every team member should grasp how the criteria are used to evaluate and rate solutions.
• Applicability: Create criteria that apply to all proposed solutions. This ensures that evaluations are fair and consistent across the board.

You can also use critical thinking techniques to develop your criteria, such as:

• Predicting Outcomes: Base your criteria on the expected results of each solution.
• Team Opinions: Incorporate feedback and viewpoints from team members to refine your criteria.
• Pros and Cons: Develop criteria that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each solution.

After discussing how each team member arrived at their solution and setting up evaluation criteria, the next step is to apply these criteria to your solutions.  

This means checking if each solution meets the criteria your team created.

Consider the following steps:

Identify possible scenarios

• Use critical thinking to predict potential outcomes of each solution. Consider possible advantages, disadvantages, and impacts.
• Check how well each solution fits the criteria based on these scenarios. This helps you gauge how effective each solution might be before you start detailed evaluation.

Check for gaps and ambiguities

• Ensure that all information in your solution aligns with the criteria you’ve set. Gaps or unclear parts can lead to non-compliance with the criteria, affecting your solution's evaluation.
• Review your solution for incomplete or ambiguous terms, phrases, or sentences. Ask your teammates if they find the solution easy to understand and complete.

Check for contradictions and inconsistencies

• Verify that your solution is free from contradictions and inconsistencies. Errors like these can prevent you from applying the criteria effectively.
• If your solution contains conflicting information or does not align with the problem, it will be challenging to apply the criteria properly during evaluation.

By doing this, you can save time by identifying solutions that don’t meet your criteria early on.

After you establish a set of criteria with your team, start evaluating each member’s solution. Evaluating a solution is crucial because it helps you determine if it can be applied in your workplace. You need to judge if a solution is practical, realistic, efficient, and effective.

There are three critical thinking techniques you should use:

These techniques help you select an unbiased solution and understand others' perspectives. When selecting a solution, remember that other people can:

• Offer insights on your evaluation process
• Help you improve your final evaluation
• Be directly or indirectly affected by your decision
• Directly or indirectly influence your decision

Steps to Select a Solution

1. Identify the ratings for each criterion: A rating scale is a tool used to measure and evaluate various criteria, such as relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness, by assigning values according to a specific scale.  Here’s how it works with different types of scales:
   • Ordinal Scale: This type of scale ranks items in order without specifying the exact difference between them. For example, you might rate your agreement on relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness as "Poor," "Fair," "Good," "Very Good," or "Excellent." Each level represents a rank, but the distance between ranks is not necessarily equal.
   • Interval Scale: This type of scale uses numbers to rate each criterion, with equal intervals between values. For example, you might rate relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 represents the lowest level of agreement or performance and 10 represents the highest. This scale allows for precise measurement and comparison of differences between ratings.
2. Explain your ratings: Provide a clear explanation for each rating. Use information to back up your ratings and show how the solution can or cannot benefit the team. Explain possible consequences if the solution is implemented.
3. Allow team feedback: Give team members time to share their insights on your evaluation. Their feedback can include realisations, additional information, or follow-up questions. This helps you understand their perspectives.

Once all team members have shared their evaluations, tally the scores by counting the individual evaluation entries for each criterion per solution. Add the individual results of each criterion for each solution. The solution with the highest votes across all criteria is the best solution.

Using these techniques to analyse a situation allows you to evaluate ideas based on available information. It also enables you to understand others' perspectives and reflect on their input.

When considering the criteria you and your team can use to evaluate solutions, remember the following:

Relevance

Check how well the solution aligns with the team’s needs, priorities, and organisational policies.

Ask yourself:

• Will it benefit many people?
• Does it address the team’s problem?
• Is it in line with the team’s priorities and needs?
• Is it realistic and practical?

Efficiency

• Measure how the expected outcome compares to the resources needed.
• A solution is efficient if it achieves the desired outcome with minimal input (time, effort, resources) and has minimal obstacles.

Impacts

• Look at the effects of implementing the solution, including both positive and negative outcomes.
• Ensure the solution has more positive impacts than negative ones.

Sustainability

• Evaluate how the solution will continue to benefit your workplace in the long term.
• Consider whether the positive impacts will last after the solution is implemented.