Tonight, @gwendiagram hosts our next Panel Discussion of 2021 talking all things critical thinking 
Gwen will be joined by @ezagroba, @jitgo & @maaike.brinkhof to answer all of your questions.
If we donât get to your questions on the night, weâll add them to the thread below for our panellists to answer later. If youâd like to continue the conversation from the webinar, this thread is an excellent place to do that 
Share resources and follow up success stories from your learnings here!
Since some book recommendations came up and also âimposter syndromeâ was mentioned; I would like to put this book here:
It was kinda eye opening for me and helping with my imposter syndrome.
TL;DR: Gut Feelings are based on âdataâ / experience:
https://www.amazon.com/Gut-Feelings-Intelligence-Gerd-Gigerenzer/dp/0670038636
My attempt at : Q: Critical Thinking is NOT�
talking in absolutesâŚ
âalways/neverâ
âItâs obvious thatâŚâ
âthe only thing that could cause this isâŚâ
âthat doesnât sound rightâ - no rationale givenâŚ
On Critical Thinking:
In my view the âcriticalâ part is about performing a âcritiqueâ of your thinking process
âŚAnd being a critic of oneâs own thinking is where you are sharpening your thought processâŚ
NB to critique something is , I would say, by itâs nature a constructive process - it is a way of improving something by observing its flaws and then correcting
@ezagroba referenced this cheat sheet shared by @fionaccharles
So a follow up to this:
I think we should be careful to not conflate âbeing criticalâ with âperforming a constructive critiqueâ
Both have their strong and weak points and applications.
Alone, strong points:
Alone, weak points:
Group, strong points:
group, weak points:
Applications of group critical thinking that I have enjoyed over the years:
I donât have specific exercises to offer, I basically just try to entice critical thinking in people by asking them non-leading questions in situations where Iâm seeking their opinion.
Beginner, aimed at gathering knowledge:
Iâm just going to be blatantly going to promote my own content here
Intermediate, aimed at applying knowledge:
Expert, aimed at teaching others:
There are no clear boundaries between these levels of course, nothing stops a beginner from giving feedback or being a teacher about critical thinking when neccesary. Being an âexpertâ is also a risk because you might start to think you know better. A true expert will always keep in mind that they are just as fallible as the next person. Stay open minded, stay curious and youâll get far.
I read the book âThinking, Fast and Slowâ in 2015 and that was the start of being interested in this topic for me.
Go read the book and see if it has the same effect on you! I always read non-fiction books with my own context in mind, at the time that was âhow can this book help me improve my testingâ and that was why it was so impactful for me at the time.
- How to distinguish âI think, I am thinking criticallyâ from the case when I really think critically? (as speaking of myself or if I evaluate person from a side) - Violetta
Itâs generally quite easy to know when you are thinking critically as you will be monitoring what you are thinking about and therefore be deliberately thinking with an aim or goal to achieve a specific outcome e.g. problem solving or decision making. Essentially one of the key skills for critical thinking is developing your self- awareness.
With critical thinking it is almost always better to focus on yourself rather than making judgments on if other people are thinking critically. There is a good chance your own biases may cloud your judgment and get you into more trouble.
- Is Critical thinking primarily within yourself or what examples/exercises can be done with and for a group? - @maiknog
The only thing you have true control over in this world is yourself and so you can only ever be certain that someone is critically thinking is yourself. So yes I would say critically thinking is primarily and individual thought process.
The simplest way to enable groups to think critically is to better understand what critically thinking isnât. Making subjective and/or unreasoned statements about your opinions and thoughts is very likely not done critically. Therefore any group activity from my prospective that is done in an unstructured way that enables people to make subjective opinions without being able to communicate the bases of their thoughts is also going to be done uncritically. You want people to be able to be as open as possibly and share what they are thinking by giving them structure to the group session. This can take many forms and would really depend on the problem or decision they are trying to make.
For instance if the group is trying to come up with a new product then primarily they are going to be solving a problem first. Therefore ideas from design thinking could be really useful here. Iâd recommend having a look at the design thinking playbook for some ideas for groups sessions.
- How to think critically in stress situations and under time pressure? - Violetta
This is were developing your self-awareness really comes in. Knowing how you typically behave in these types of situations and spotting when you are behaving that way is the first step. At first it might just be getting used to knowing what happens and what you do. After some time of being able to do this quite easily is a good point to try and see what you could do differently in place of your typical behaviour.
For example letâs say when you get stressed you start to feel anxious and you feel the fight or flight behaviour taking over. First of all see what specifically about this situation is making you feel stressed. Is it a tight deadline or having to think of an answer on the spot? From here start to work backwards through your thought process. What exactly is it about the deadline that is worrying you? What would really happen if you missed the deadline? What would really happen if you only have part of an answer or asked if you can get back to them? More often than not itâs our own assumptions about a situation that causes use the most worry which leads to stress. So can you start identifying what assumption you are making about this situation and start to find answers for those assumptions.
The thing about this is at first you are very unlikely to be able to go through this process during the situation due to your heightened emotional state. Therefore it better to do this when you are in a calm and relaxed mood to analysis your thought process.
- How would you recommend articulating the value of "critical thinking while testing " to a engineering team? - @christianfield
Going back to what critical thinking isnât can be helpful here. One way to describe not thinking critically is making subjective and/or unreasoned statements about your opinions, thoughts and decisions. Looking at testing through this lens could be almost randomly hitting buttons/trying things with no actual aim other than to hit that button. But applying critical thinking while testing always reminds me of Elizabeth Hendrickson definition of exploratory testing from Explore it!:
Simultaneously designing and executing tests to learn about the system, using your insights from the last experiment to inform the next - Elizabeth Hendrickson, Explore it
They key is using your insights from the last experiment. Experimentation is a deliberate action based on the information you have. Therefore you have to critically think to be able to come up with even a basic experiment otherwise it will be incoherent for others to understand and you would simply be doing things for the sake of it. To be able to use the insights you first need to comprehend what you have seen and apply that to your existing knowledge. All of which needs critically thinking, but most of us are doing this so quickly we barley notice it even happening. This is where slowing down and being deliberate really helps e.g. by applying an experimental mindset.
Helping teams to better understand what exploratory testing is and using a definition such as Elizabeth Hendrickson to anchor their thinking on could be a good way to articulate critically thinking to anyone not just engineering teams.
- Is there a âtool setâ to use for different experience levels of folks, aka beginner, advanced, expert? - @maiknog
Interesting question and I think there would be a number of different ways to answer it. For me Iâd say for beginners to develop their self-awareness is the first step. Looking into areas such developing their active listening skills (to take in information accurately) and also improving their questioning skills (if you donât ask the right question youâll never get the right answers). Would all help to get them thinking and most importantly practicing critically thinking. Also looking into how they get, receive and ask for feedback too as feedback is key for learning.
At the mid level Iâd suggest developing their self awareness skills even further by beginning to look into emotional intelligence. This will enable them to further develop awareness of their emotional state, begin developing skills to handle their feelings better, to understand other peoples emotional state better and use their emotions rather than trying to suppress them.
For the more advanced skills would be to really start looking at what biases are, how they and others are affected by them and what they can do to start limiting the impact of some of the more common ones.
The key thing to remember in all of this is critically thinking is a journey and is a never ending pursuit. You can always get better at doing it and helping others to do it too. I never followed the above steps but jumped around following my curiosity to where it lead me and Iâd advices others to do the same. All the above skills are interrelated and will complement and build on top of each other.