The Thinker's Toolkit ^{2nd Ed.}

The Thinker's Toolkit is an invaluable resource for every manager or professional — a unique collection of proven, practical methods for simplifying any problem and making faster, better decisions every time, including:

• Problem Restatement: For relocating your point of view to bring new solutions into focus.
• The Causal-Flow Diagram: For taking problems apart to find out what makes them tick.
• Utility Analysis: For comparing things that are hard to compare (apples and oranges) and choosing the best alternative.

Former CIA analyst Morgan James provides techniques that are easy to learn and easy to apply, requiring no more equipment than a pencil and a legal pad. Armed with The Thinker's Toolkit, anyone in business can start making better decisions today —with immediate benefits to the bottom line.

• Part One: Why We Go Astray
1. Thinking About Thinking
2. Insights into Problem Solving
• Part Two: The Fourteen Tools
3. Problem Restatement
4. Pros-Cons-and-Fixes
5. Divergent/Convergent Thinking
6. Sorting, Chronologies, and Time Lines
7. Casual Flow Diagramming
8. The Matrix
9. The Decision/Event Tree
10. Weighted Ranking
11. Hypothesis Testing
12. Devil's Advocacy
13. The Probability Tree
14. The Utility Tree
15. The Utility Matrix
16. Advanced Utility Analysis
• Part Three: Where Do We Go From Here?
17. Your Next Steps

An excellent book about how to make decisions.