Dr. Edward de Bono was a Maltese physician who is famous for introducing the term ‘lateral thinking.’ A distinguished Noble graduate, he dedicated his entire life to developing problem-solving and thinking methods, and authored 85 books. Government agencies, corporate clients, organizations, and individuals all benefit from his contributions to decision-making and critical thinking methods today.
In this story, I’ll share an underrated yet well-known method by Dr. de Bono that helps enhance your critical thinking. Surprisingly, this method accomplishes even more: it prevents overthinking and aids in reaching high-quality decisions more efficiently. Additionally, I will introduce the assistant I’ve created as a ChatGPT prompt to support your idea generation and analysis process. I assure you that ChatGPT won’t let you down this time!
Decision-making is crucial for our lives, yet it can be time-consuming
When making complex decisions in our lives, we frequently rely on the opinions of people around us, professionals, general knowledge, common sense, and even articles from the internet. Not only do we seek support from others, but we also search for missing details in our situation or problem and explore non-ordinary angles of view. The decision we arrive at using this approach is referred to as an informed decision.
Making informed decisions is a complex topic. Organizational decision making is far more complex. And time consuming too.
According to a survey conducted by McKinsey & Company “Decision making in the age of urgency”, managers in organizations spend an average of 37% of their work time on decision-making. More than one-third of work time of high salary workers is devoted to decision making!
Ineffective decision making has significant implications for company productivity. — McKinsey & Company
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Decisions in our personal lives and within companies should be made in a timely manner, where both quality and velocity are important factors. The research mentioned indicates a strong correlation between the quality and speed of decision-making and overall company performance.
The strategy for cultivating open-mindedness in informed decision making
The process of decision making consists of seven steps (as outlined on Indeed.com):
- Identify the issue
- Gather relevant information
- Brainstorm possible outcomes and generate alternatives
- Compare options and evaluate alternatives
- Choose a course of action
- Implement the decision
- Review the outcomes
While the first two steps may seem obvious, generating alternatives and evaluating them can often be challenging. Fortunately, ingenius Edward de Bono has provided us with an effective strategy to overcome this challenge.
PMI (plus, minus, interesting) is a versatile tool for brainstorming, decision-making, and critical thinking. It is employed to encourage the thorough examination of ideas, concepts, and experiences from multiple perspectives. For many of us, this method is familiar from our school days.
The method involves creating a table with three separate columns: one for pros, another for cons, and the third for any other interesting aspects related to the idea.
More detailed explanation of this method can be found at the University Of Newcastle. An example of applying this method to a personal decision, such as relocation, is available here. Application for government related tasks and U.S. Army described here at Edutopia.org. For teaching kids there is a great page on PMI Strategy too.
Let’s try Plus-Minus-Interesting Strategy with ChatGPT
Even though there has been a decline in online interest regarding ChatGPT and OpenAI over the last quarter, writers at Forbes are consistently publishing new articles on this topic almost every day. If we consider ChatGPT as a new programming platform accessible to a wide audience unfamiliar with coding, along with being the largest repository of human knowledge, it becomes evident why journalists are drawn to cover it.
Now it’s time for us, dear reader, to turn ChatGPT into our ultimate thinking helper! Don’t follow me here on Medium if you feel pro about crafting ChatGPT prompts.
First, we open ChatGPT website and command the chat to become our Think Robot using the prompt below:
You are the PMI Think Robot. Your purpose is to provide good input for thinking about problems being asked by me. I will share you some ideas in free form. Every idea will start from the word IDEA. Then you will help in lateral thinking. You respond in a form of a table that contains three columns: Plus, Minus, Interesting. Let's call this table The PMI Table.
In Plus column of The PMI Table, you tell positive sides about idea that I ask. In Minus column of The PMI Table, you tell negative sides and consequences about idea provided. In Interesting column of The PMI Table you write everything that you find unexpected, clever or basically inspiring in idea provided. Your answer in every column of The PMI Table should be in form of numbered list. You try to do your best and provide every aspect specific for situation provided. If more context required, you'd ask for every clarification needed. After my answer you try again to generate The PMI Table. That’s it. Now, ChatGPT acts as a PMI Think Robot that will be able to evaluate every our idea. For consistency, we need to prepend our request by the word “IDEA”.
Let’s start from another trending topic: What if I switch my career in my 40s and become a data scientist to tap into tech boom?
While most of answers looks general or expected, in a matter of seconds you receive a broad multi-view of your decision. Sometimes, covering dark corners and unknown aspects of idea.
IDEA: Master TikTok marketing for my small restaurant and attract a younger audience
While the idea may look reasonable and there is a plenty of success stories, let’s add some spice.
From this informed point of view we observe that the idea as-is basically wouldn’t work without engaging professionals in TikTok marketing.
IDEA: Move to Bali and work remotely, enjoying a balanced lifestyle by the beach
By the way, there exist a perfect starting point to explore Bali and other destinations as a digital nomad. NomadList is a global community of remote workers living and traveling around the world. The community website is quiet informative and covers topics like quality of life, local prices and overall costs of living, quality of internet, safety, healthcare and so on.
IDEA: focus on personal growth and self-love as I rebuild my life after divorce
Conclusion
Decision-making is time-consuming, yet it bears irreversible consequences for our lives. Companies are propelled forward by high-quality, informed, and timely decisions even though one-third of work time of managers is spent on decision-making.
Plus-minus-interesting is a simple yet potent method for building the foundation of informed decisions. While it’s effective with group brainstorming, you can also start on your own. Despite ChatGPT’s mixed reputation, it can be used to improve decisions and develop ideas. We’ve created a PMI Think Robot that takes any idea and generates a 3-column PMI table, helping you tackle problems and make better decisions.
Thank you for reading! If you’re intrigued by thinking methods and how AI can become a valuable ally in this realm, consider subscribing to my Medium.