Capstone Project

STRATEGIC THINKING

Key Terms and Concepts

CRITICAL THINKING BEING ANALYTICAL

GOOD JUDGMENT RATIONAL vs. RATIONALIZING

STYLES OF THINKING LOGICAL ARGUMENTATION

PROBABLISTIC DECISION-MAKING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FIRM AS (and in) A SYSTEM

This class is a capstone, integrative course to bring together all your prior studies about business and wrap them into a way of THINKING about business that is necessary for success – your individual success and the success of your firm or your employer. Specifically, we are talking about deliberate thinking, and deliberate thinking requires a PROCESS for deriving conclusions, making decisions, and selecting among alternative choices. We, of course, are going to focus on the application of such thinking and thinking processes in relation to a business enterprise. The concepts and methods, however, are also useful for other decisions and choices you must make in your life.

One flaw of human nature is that we tend to spend our intellectual capability RATIONALIZING to make the world around us fit what we believe to be true rather than BEING RATIONAL to objectively figure out cause-effect relationships and to evaluate the probability of our choices leading to desired ends.

This class attempts to develop your ability to break from human nature and your natural biases, heuristics (look that up), and logic traps. Instead, the aim is to help you become more analytical and make better decisions, recommendations, and choices. What we will cover are fundamental concepts and methods for good thinking and decision making. The methods presented are not the only ways or necessarily the best ways, but they are the most widely recognized principles and approaches. A great place to start your journey as a better business thinker.

----------------- --------------------------------------------

Search the Internet for ‘how to be successful in business’ and you will get a LOT of tips and advice. But there is one underlying thing that underscores all those lists and tips and stories and advice: making good and appropriate decisions . Some things that influence your life are out of your control. For example: your parents; where and when you were born; how you were raised; were you received your primary education; etc. Your career success will, to some degree, also be affected by luck, timing, and being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. There is, however, one key – even related to random luck and timing – that you can strive to control: your decisions - - your choices on how you respond to things, what goals you choose, how you choose to behave and think, and what you pay attention to and prioritize.

A business enterprise (let’s call it a ‘firm’ just to be short) is really just a group of people doing things toward a common end result. Just as for individuals, the success or failure of a firm is based on choices. If you are self-employed, your firm’s results are clearly a result of your choices . If you work for a business, employees’ choices matter to some degree at some level. Getting promoted and moving up in a firm is largely determined by your ability to contribute to achieving the firm’s desired results. In other words, your ability to make and act on good decisions – and to help others make and act on good decisions – is really valuable!

Choices. Decisions. Conclusions. …. it all sound so straightforward. But business is very, very, complex. Things are changing all the time – customer demands, competitors, suppliers, employees. Each of those variables is about people...and people are all different; people change their minds and behaviors all the time. And think about technology… technology is rapidly changing, sometimes radically. This creates a great deal of complexity and uncertainty for making decisions in business.

It’s not just what you know, or even who you know…. It’s also about how you navigate the complex and uncertain world of business by gathering up valid information, understanding a situation (an opportunity, a problem, a decision, etc.), and getting to a conclusion, a decision, or a choice among alternatives. There is another hurdle, too. Often you will not be able to make and act on important business decisions all alone. You will need to convince and persuade people to agree and accept your conclusion and decisions. Some examples: you may need to convince the CFO to allocate resources for a new project; you may need to persuade your team that your solution is best; you may need to convince your client that your recommended solution to their problem is best.

How do you make good business decisions? How do you persuade others to agree with your conclusions and recommendations? Good questions! Read on.

CRITICAL THINKING

In the natural science fields (medicine, geology, chemistry, physics, etc.) there are natural laws that dictate and explain how things exist or happen. Business is a social science, however. It’s all about people and how people’s choices and behaviors affect one another in complex and dynamic ways. There are no scientific, natural laws to help you make choices when people are involved. Decision-making in social sciences is about striving for a high probability of being correct, best, or otherwise successful. This is referred to as probabilistic decision-making . We can also label this ‘ good judgment’ (i.e., the ability to make well-considered decisions or derive sensible conclusions.). When you apply appropriate processes and techniques in your probabilistic decision making, not only do you increase your odds of making good decisions you also enhance your ability to persuade others that your proposal or decision has a high confidence of being successful. The deliberate path to good judgments is critical thinking.

First, you must choose to be a critical thinker. Critical thinking is a deliberate act, it is purposeful. Critical thinking contrasts with what Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman calls system 1 thinking. System 1 thinking is automatic, responsive, emotional, instinctive, and habitual thinking that drives most of our choices. System 1 thinking is based on past experiences, biases, beliefs, stereotypes, and generalizations. System 2 thinking, the deliberate and thoughtful kind of critical thinking, is about seeking to understand something so well that you can make more effective decisions related to that issue.

Critical thinking requires that you:

· Recognize issues that deserve system 2 thinking.

· Problems that need to be solved

· Opportunities that are attractive and should be pursued

· Decisions that must be made

· Prioritize issues and decision factors

· What is most urgent- what decisions need to be made now

· What is irrelevant or of trivial importance

· What data is most important for a decision?

· How to prioritize and rank viable alternatives to select the ‘best bet’ option

· Gather appropriate data and evidence , organize it to understand it, synthesize a variety of data; AND - evaluate the validity of data and evidence to only use valid data

· Recognize assumptions, biases, opinions (system 1 thinking) as they arise – in yourself and in others involved - and set them aside to emphasize objectivity and system 2 thinking

· Critically evaluate your conclusions – be objective and continually self-assess

· Be open to changing your thinking. Be objective and open to new ideas, new evidence, and alternative conclusions and then reconstruct your own beliefs when faced with strong arguments or valid data showing that prior ones were incorrect or less likely.

Based on these we can see that critical thinkers (‘smart people’), are characterized by:

· Clear understanding of the differences between opinions, ideas, and suggestions versus facts, evidence-based conclusions, and well-argued recommendations

· Their commitment to critical thinking and striving to make good and objective judgments – the quality of the decision is all that matters

· Open-mindedness and focus on getting to the best possible decisions

· They LEARN. They have an ability to admit when they are wrong, misinformed, or lacking enough information to make a quality choice – thus, they are able to change their positions when necessary. They have flexibility in their thinking, not a rigid, defensive posture to protect past positions or decisions.

Did you notice that nowhere in the description of critical thinking does it say you must be ‘intelligent’? Critical thinking - which you can also call being rational, logical, or analytical – is not the same as intelligence. Studies show that often it is the most intelligent people who make the least rational choices! Here is more on this:

The Difference Between Rationality and Intelligence (excerpt)

By David Z. Hambrick and Alexander P. Burgoyne

The New York Times, Sept. 16, 2016

{added notes in bold are from Dr. Carter}

ARE you intelligent — or rational? The question may sound redundant, but in recent years researchers have demonstrated just how distinct those two cognitive attributes actually are.

It all started in the early 1970s, when the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky conducted an influential series of experiments showing that all of us, even highly intelligent people, are prone to irrationality. Across a wide range of scenarios, the experiments revealed, people tend to make decisions based on intuition rather than reason.

{Kahneman and Tversky described that because humans like to make quicker, easier decisions, we tend to use ‘heuristics’ that help us understand things (think about assumptions, stereotypes, habits, basing everything on past experiences, etc.). When we need rationality most is when we face complex situations, but that is when – paradoxically – we are often most likely to seek mental shortcuts. We thus fall into irrationality by our biases which inhibit us from being analytical and thinking critically}.

*Do a search for and learn about the various biases that can undermine your ability to make quality decisions! Here is a starter: https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/management-leadership-organizational-behavior/common-biases-and-errors-in-decision-making }

In one study, Professors Kahneman and Tversky had people read the following personality sketch for a woman named Linda: “Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations.” Then they asked the subjects which was more probable: (A) Linda is a bank teller or (B) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement. Eighty-five percent of the subjects chose B, even though logically speaking, A is more probable. (All feminist bank tellers are bank tellers, though some bank tellers may not be feminists.)

In the Linda problem, we fall prey to the conjunction fallacy — the belief that the co-occurrence of two events is more likely than the occurrence of one of the events. {or… because we think we are so smart, and because we humans love to solve problems, we often think (assume) a more precise answer (the ‘conjunction’ is more probable (thus correct) than a more general one.} In other cases, we ignore information about the prevalence of events when judging their likelihood. We fail to consider alternative explanations. We evaluate evidence in a manner consistent with our prior beliefs {confirmation bias} . And so on. Humans, it seems, are fundamentally irrational. {this is why those who can develop skills at being analytical and rational will generally be more successful in life!}

But starting in the late 1990s, researchers began to add a significant wrinkle to that view. As the psychologist Keith Stanovich and others observed, even the Kahneman and Tversky data show that some people are highly rational. In other words, there are individual differences in rationality, even if we all face cognitive challenges in being rational. So, who are these more rational people? Presumably, the more intelligent people, right?

Wrong. In a series of studies, Professor Stanovich and colleagues had large samples of subjects (usually several hundred) complete judgment tests like the Linda problem, as well as an I.Q. test. The major finding was that irrationality — or what Professor Stanovich called “dysrationalia” — correlates relatively weakly with I.Q. A person with a high I.Q. is about as likely to suffer from dysrationalia as a person with a low I.Q. In a 2008 study, Professor Stanovich and colleagues gave subjects the Linda problem and found that those with a high I.Q. were, if anything, more prone to the conjunction fallacy. {People who are more intelligent - or think they are more intelligent - can believe they know or understand more than they actually do. They then try to prove it by being more precise and more confident in their answers/conclusions. Their lack of rational thinking, however, can often lead them far, far away from good decisions and conclusions. This also occurs when people are striving to demonstrate how smart they are – I see this with students every semester!}}

BEING ANALYTICAL

Critical thinking…being logical…being rational. We get there by being analytical in our approach to decisions and solving problems. The word analytical has its roots in Latin language meaning ‘to break up and loosen’. Think about that. You don’t need to analyze simple things or simple decisions. You use analysis to break up complex issues, to loosen apart all the individual component pieces or elements involved in the thing/issue (i.e., the problem, opportunity, choice) you are trying to understand. By taking a complex thing/issue and breaking it apart, you can inspect the entire system of elements and how they fit and interact as one ‘thing’ (more about systems theory in a later class session).

When you think analytically, you first seek to understand the thing/issue that is the focus of your attention. As noted above as the first part of thinking critically, you first must accurately identify the problem or ‘thing’ that you need to address. Before you just dive in and start addressing problems or pursuing opportunities, you’ve got to make good choices about what it is you most need to analyze. The better you understand the subject of your analysis, the better you can make informed decisions about how you will address it. You first must know what the ideal state is… what are you trying to achieve …what is the ideal outcome for or of this ‘system’? You must also know what component parts should be in the system and how they should best be connected and interrelate. By knowing what you are seeking, you can then identify what components are MISSING or are NOT connecting correctly for the system to operate as desired. Think about that…you can’t effectively fix something that is not working correctly if you don’t know how it is supposed to work. When you accurately understand the thing you are working on you can identify the cause-effect linkages that explain why or how the ‘system’ is performing as it is or how it will perform if some change is made. When you identify these underlying causal factors, you now know what it is you can address to make the system work better (i.e., to improve system performance).

SYSTEMS THINKING

A system is a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. The overall performance of a system is affected by the presence and performance of each individual component of the system AND how effectively each component relates to and integrates with other components. In systems, many components are interdependent, that is they rely on one another. If something changes in one part of the system, other parts change, too (good or bad). In many systems, the breakdown of one little thing can cause the whole system to stop. Think about a car. One flat tire. One broken belt. A dead battery. No steering wheel! Think about all the things that have to work well and work well together to result in a reliable, safe automobile.

A business is really just people doing things with things. People. Choices. Resources. Activities. There are inputs coming into the system (money, new people, new technologies, raw materials, etc.) and there are things produced and going out of the system (thus, a business is what is called an Open System). Within the firm, there are people organized by functional areas (departments) that must be integrated to work toward the same goals at the same time and holding to the same principles and values and overall guiding mission, vision, and values. You may have seen functional organizational charts like the one below; these are a simple (and limited) representation of an organizations functional system and how the lines of authority work.

But the system is more than just who reports to whom? Finance must provide the financial resources needed by other areas to do their work. HR must provide the talent for other areas. Sales won’t produce if production can’t provide the inventory to fill orders. If the marketing people go off in a different direction than the salespeople…not good. If the supply chain people are not getting the vendors and supplies the production people need…not good. Choices and actions in one area are often interdependent, that is, to positively affect the overall firm (system) performance they must be working in synch.

A business also operates within a system…and this is a dynamic COMPETITIVE context. (You can simplify somewhat and think of this as the ‘industry’ in which a firm competes). There are suppliers, buyers, competitors all continually changing and making new decisions and getting new inputs and striving to achieve greater outcomes. Inputs, such as technologies and available materials also change. There are also complex, dynamic changes related to the nature of the competitive context. Laws, societal norms, the broader economy, peoples’ tastes and values, the size and makeup of populations, etc. This all means that a business is, and operates in, a very complex system! Understanding a firm’s internal and external systems and them making appropriate choices to effectively align and integrate all the various components of the systems is what the activity of strategic management is all about.

The aim is to achieve and sustain superior performance (competitive advantage) and the better all the components of the systems are aligned (the internal alignment of the firm’s system and the alignment of the firm’s system to the system of the competitive context in which they operate, the greater the performance of the system. In strategic management, this is what we mean by Strategic Alignment. The ‘model’ of strategic alignment, a very important concept in strategic management and this course, is presented below.

Performance

External Demands of the Competitive Context

Competitive Strategy Choices

Internal Resources and Capabilities

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

If you recall, ‘management’ in business refers to the coordination and administration of tasks, resources, and people to most effectively and efficiently achieve some desired outcome. STRATEGIC management is specifically about managing at the organizational (firm) level. To improve long-term, sustainable performance, one improves the overall strategic alignment described/shown above. Note that there are two internal elements: Resources and Capabilities, things the firm HAS and DOES, and Strategic CHOICES. The factors of the external environment, that is, what firms must have or do to be able to be successful, must be aligned to (met) by the firm’s choices, and in turn, their resources and capabilities must enable them to effectively execute a quality strategy. We’ll get into these topics a bit more in a few sessions.

For now, understand that the term strategy is a set of choices made with the aim of achieving some objective . It’s about HOW you intend to accomplish something. In strategic management, when we talk broadly about ‘strategy’ we are: (1) focused on the perspective of FIRM-level outcomes (performance) and not the performance or choices related to a department, project, or team; (2) focused on ‘effective and efficient’, that is, we strive to improve the long-term performance of the firm and not just an immediate cost reduction or sales boost; (3) focused on the entire firm and how it all must work as one unit to achieve those desired outcomes (i.e. all departments, all functions, all decisions, all behaviors and how they work as one system); and (4) we are focused on CHOICES about how to organize and direct the resources, activities, intentions, and market offerings of the firm to achieve sustainable superior performance.

We will talk more in depth about strategy and strategic management in a few classes, but let’s get these points set as a foundation:

· Strategy = a plan, a set of choices, about how you intend to achieve a desired outcome

· Firms (the people), of course, want to be successful, so…

· Success for a firm = a sustained and superior level of performance (what we call sustained competitive advantage )

· It’s not about being the BIGGEST or the FASTEST or the most liked

· Sure, it’s okay to strive to be the largest, the #1 firm in an industry, but does that mean the #2 firm is ‘unsuccessful’? Usually not.

· NO firm is considered successful, however, if their performance is below average for their industry or if their performance is declining each year. (We will cover more on assessing performance later).

· What we want then is above average (superior) performance and we want that level of performance year after year after year (i.e., sustained superior performance)

· While success can have many desired outcomes, if a firm is not economically successful, it can’t continue to serve customers, or employees, or the community. Thus, we must look at the economic performance as the key desired outcome.

· Firms operate in competitive market contexts that are complex systems of customers, competitors, suppliers, and other entities and factors.

· THEREFORE - STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT is the practice and process of continually analyzing the business context and adjusting the set of choices with the intention of achieving or extending a sustainable competitive advantage, i.e., superior long-term economic performance. Think of it as managing the entire enterprise for continuous improvement or the continual pursuit of greater performance.

Critical thinking and being analytical is essential to strategic management. We know the goal – sustainable competitive advantage. We can assess the current state of a firm’s performance and identify if it is less than desired or if we need to seek new ways to extend its superiority. In a few weeks, you will learn some theory about how the firm’s strategic choices should be aligned to drive performance. Then you will learn how to ‘break apart’ the firm and the set of current choices so that you can identify where some choices may not be correct or as effective as they should be. In that way, you will strive to identify the underlying causes of why the performance of the firm is not as desired (or, if they are doing well, where enhancements can drive even greater performance). Critical thinking. Analytical thinking. In the context of strategic management then, we can call all this strategic thinking .

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AS PROBLEM-SOLVING

Strategic thinking and being analytical are hard work! That is why those individuals who learn how to do it well rise up into upper management. They identify problems where others have not, determine the root causes to be addressed where others try easy fixes that fail to get lasting results, and assess alternative means of addressing the issue to select that which has the best chance of success. Note the steps there:

· Identify and understand the specific problem to be addressed

· Identify the root cause(s) that can be affected

· Identify and evaluate realistic alternatives to remedy the cause of the problem

· Select the alternative that has the best probability of success

Philosopher Isaiah Berlin developed a classification system to describe two general types of thinkers: Hedgehogs and Foxes. Hedgehogs have single, narrow perspective and strong convictions that they know what they know. They are very confident that they are right and will argue with force, hyperbole (look that up), and give all sorts of ‘reinforcing’ support. Their favorite word could be “moreover” as in giving more and more reasons they are right. For a hedgehog, the world is black and white – this or that, and they know which is the correct path.

Foxes, on the other hand, like to use the word “however” because they accept complexity and uncertainty and try to see the world from multiple perspectives. They are always considering how contexts are different and solutions may need to be different, too. Foxes are thus adaptable, quick to change course when a choice isn’t working out. They listen, they think, they learn. In complex, ever-changing situations (like strategic management), some hedgehogs will succeed almost by force or luck, but many more adaptive and experimental foxes will find pathways to success. Which would you like to be, a FOX or a HEDGEHOG?

LOGICAL ARGUMENTATION

Alas, being a strategic critical thinker and decision-maker, is not usually enough. Rarely can you or anyone in business make all the strategic decisions all alone. Even an entrepreneur will need to convince a bank or investors about the soundness of their proposed decisions (i.e., their strategy or plan). If they have employees or partners, the entrepreneur will from time to time have to persuade those individuals to follow, to agree, and buy in on their decisions. When you work for a larger organization, even if you are the CEO, you will still usually have to persuade others (e.g., middle managers, employees, Board of Directors) to agree with or accept your decisions. Your career will be filled with times that you are asked to develop a recommendation for a team, your boss, a client, or your entire firm. It is not enough to do the work of arriving at your conclusions and recommendations; you must be able to present your recommendations in a way that leads the others to accept and agree with your analysis and conclusions. A plan is just a plan – to make anything happen usually requires agreement and actions of others. This is where you must be able to convert your analytical thinking into effective communication – in this context, ‘logical argumentation’.

Logical reasoning is another term that can be applied to the critical, analytical thinking already described. Logic is useful when you can’t rely on natural laws or exact evidence of what is true, that is, when you have to make an inference about something based on available data. When you are communicating to persuade others into agreement with your inferences and conclusions, for example, your recommendations for improving your firm’s competitive advantage, you engage in logical argumentation.

A logical argument is a claim (a conclusion, recommendation, decision) built on a set of premises (a sub-claim and/or piece of supporting evidence). A simple example:

Issue: My dog’s hair is a mess. It’s all tangled and matted.

· Conclusion: I should take my dog to a professional groomer.

· Premise 1: I don’t know how to correctly cut a dog’s hair.

· Premise 2: I don’t have the right tools to do a good job, even if I knew how to do it.

· Premise 3: A qualified groomer will be skilled and experienced at addressing tangled and matted dog hair.

The basic structure is about (1) stating your conclusion/choice/recommendation then (2) laying out the most convincing, or necessary, premises that lead to and support the conclusion. In another fashion, the premises address the question of “how did you arrive this conclusion?”. But this is a simple example. In more realistic and complex arguments, you go further to provide evidence that supports each of the premises. For example.

Issue: How can we improve the profitability of our clothing store?

· (Start with the final recommendation): We need to add men’s shoes to our product line.

· (Give premise 1): We are already successful in selling men’s jeans and shirts.

· (Give supporting data): Men’s clothing represents 29% of our total sales and this segment is growing faster (17% in the past year) than women’s apparel (just 11% in the past year).

· (Give premise 2): Our male customers like our clothing designs and would like to see us offer shoes.

· (Evidence to support): Here are example requests posted on our website asking for us to offer men’s shoes. X y z……..

· (Give another premise): Our current suppliers of women’s shoes can supply men’s shoes, too.

· (Evidence): Carthage Corp., our supplier, offers a full range of causal and dress shoes for men. Among all our suppliers, Carthage is #1 in reliability and quality. Because of our volume in women’s shoes, we can combine orders and increase inventory turns on footwear overall from 8 to 14 times, driving profitability up by an estimated 2%.

· (Another premise): Men’s shoes are more profitable and can thus boost our overall profitability.

· (Data/evidence): Our women’s shoes average a profit margin of 58% compared to apparel at 44%.

· By exploiting our brand and design features, and by leveraging the relationship with Carthage, we can price our men’s shoes as premium and secure gross margins of over 60%.

· (Another premise): There is no other product segment we can so easily enter that offers an improvement in profit margins.

· (Provide data on children’s apparel; jewelry/accessories; formal wear … all showing lower opportunities for profit margin improvement)

· (Restate conclusions): THEREFORE – our best move to improve overall profitability is to expand into men’s shoes.

Note the structure: State the conclusion/recommendation. Then state the premises, in as much of a logical order as you can, with necessary evidence to support each premise. Then finish by restating your conclusion. The strength of an argument is built on the strength of the support for each premise offered. When you get a person to agree with and accept the validity of each of your premises, and the premises ‘logically’ flow and build toward your conclusion, then it is difficult for a person to not agree with your conclusion. That is how you persuade someone that your analytical thinking, your strategic analysis, your recommended solution to a problem is the ‘best’ way to go!

GOOD ANALYSIS PROCESS SUPPORTS LOGICAL ARGUMENTATION

Consider now what you need to build up that kind of a quality argument. As stated earlier, when you use a good process to analyze an issue, you break it up into its parts and linkages, check those to see what is missing or not working correctly and identify the underlying cause-effect relationships that explain why overall performance is not where you’d like. Then you prioritize which causes, if several, are having the greatest negative impact. You can then prioritize which needs to be addressed to affect performance most positively. That is your recommendation.

Communicating your argument (claims and evidence) is really just like going in the reverse order of how you developed your conclusion through your analysis . In your analysis , you gather data and draw conclusions about specific and important pieces of ‘the puzzle’. You then bring these all together ( synthesis) to understand the situation and identify alternative solutions. Next, you gather and use more data/analysis to evaluate alternatives and choose the one alternative that appears to be the ‘best bet’ (i.e., highest probability of being the best). In making your argument, you begin by stating your conclusion as to the ‘best bet’ and then lay out the conclusion you made at each step of your analysis, establishing validity in your process and in the data you used to make your decisions.

Observe how people make arguments all around you – on TV, in your family, at work. Learn to examine the level of critical thinking, logical argumentation, and validity of evidence used. Catch yourself when you are not making a good argument or when you are stating opinions as facts or drawing rigid conclusions even in the face of contrary evidence. Learn to be a critical thinker!

You will CONTINUALLY use critical thinking and logical argumentation in the assignments for this course. PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE. It will likely be fuzzy and difficult the first few times, but from years of teaching this, the evidence strongly suggests that if you keep this initial lesson in mind each week for each assignment, by the end you will notice you have begun to build habits and ‘logic’ muscles.

Extras….

Here are two supplemental/optional video on CRITICAL THINKING:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnJ1bqXUnIM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eEBuqwY-nE

Tips for writing a well-structured argument

First : State your conclusion (recommendation, etc.)

Second : Provide REASONS supporting your conclusion (these are your premises); Strive to have at least three major premises….and use the three strongest ones you can develop!

· For each premise, you must provide valid, acceptable EVIDENCE (data) that supports the premise.

· Argue your analysis, not your opinions

· YOUR analysis – Do Not Report on others’ conclusions!

· Provide at least TWO pieces of data/evidence to support each premise

Third : Once you have given each major premise, and supported each with multiple pieces of valid evidence, conclude by restating your conclusion.

Another way to think about it:

1. Tell me your conclusion

2. Give me one (best) reason I should agree with that conclusion.

- Give me some objective data to make me believe that reason is valid.

3. Okay..but I need more. Give me ANOTHER valid reason I should agree (and give me data for this one, too)

4. Now close the deal with a THIRD reason and evidence making believe that one is valid, too.

5. You’ve led me this far, so just tell me again where we’ve ended up…the conclusion that follows logically from the previous premises and data.

Refer back to the video on Argumentation if you want some examples. You can also find many lessons and examples about logical argument structure on the Internet.

STRUCTURE is important to guide the ‘thinking’ of your audience. What do you want them to agree with…what are the reasons they should agree…what is the data that should convince them those reasons are valid…and close by stating again the logical conclusion that is clear based on the premises and data.

DATA must be valid and convincing. Opinions don’t count for much, nor do ‘samples of one’ such as your experience or what you have observed . This is where you use the data from your analyses (statistics, conclusions from your analysis steps, facts about industries, etc.). Note that often times you can strengthen an argument by showing how an alternative conclusion is NOT supported .

It always helps to be objective and put yourself in the mind of your audience (i.e., the person or people you trying to convince with your argument). If your idea is pretty radical, they are likely to be skeptical and you will need a stronger argument (more premises, better data, great logic). What are some alternative interpretations of your data and analysis might they make? You will need to make your argument support that YOUR conclusion is more likely true (the ‘better’ interpretation). Maybe you can give some data that undermines their contrary analysis.

In this course, you will learn what types of data and what analytical methods are useful for developing well-reasoned conclusions for specific questions. The templates given for these analytical steps provide much of what you need for your argument. Your final conclusion, any minor conclusions, the data you used, the valid and appropriate analytical steps and techniques you used.