Creating Value: An Easy Way to Critically Think for Better Insights

You’ve may have done some reading, research or a workshop and need to do some analysis and interpretation on this so you may be looking for a framework to help you get deeper insights.

Here is the Deep Insight Inverted Pyramid I’ve developed.

The Deep Insight Pyramid

The Deep Insight Pyramid is based on Bloom’s Taxonomy. I’ve spent many years working as a teacher and in academia, which helped me critically think and analyse. When I saw this taxonomy, such much started to make sense to me and it made a huge difference in how I studied for exams and wrote papers.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s taxonomy is the basis for marking in the education system. I learned this when I studied to be a teacher. Its purpose was to help improve the thinking process. The taxonomy itself is “a classification system used to define and distinguish different levels of human cognition” (Great Schools Partnership, 2013). The original model was developed in 1956 and based on three areas: Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor. You can read more about Bloom’s Taxonomy here.

K. Aainsquatsi

What is the Deep Insight Pyramid?

The Deep Insight Pyramid can be applied in so many ways, from business reports to academic papers. It means so much more value can be gained from all the hard work done gathering information. But what is it?

The Idea

For a business report, you would perhaps describe an idea, the industry, the customer segment and the research findings. For academia, you would talk about the theory or model. Here is where the background information would go, perhaps from desk research or from some data collection.

This level focuses on description and explanation. Sometimes reports do not go beyond this, meaning little value is being given.

Analysis

You take the idea you’ve described and talk about why it is good and why it is bad. What are the benefits and limitations of it, in isolation? In theory?

For example, it could be that the model or theory is old or the research was based on a small sample. For business reports it could be that the research findings are skewed toward a certain demographic or the sample size was a good reflection of the population.

Application

How does what you have been talking about so far, apply in a real-world setting? For example, the research findings may not be applicable to a wide population because of the sample, but inferences can be made that can be applied such as we know that people agreed that product X was more popular than product Y. This can indicate areas for future research where other user groups could be involved.

For an academic theory or model, this could be applied to the real-world, for example, a theory on behaviour can show that because we did X, in its application, it meant that Y was the outcome.

Buried Treasure: Adding Value

This is the evaluation of the idea, model etc, in a real-world setting, what would be its risks, benefits or limitations? For example, for the business report if the data collection focused on market research, this is the point in the report where we would do critical analysis. Therefore, as a result of the analysis and application done so far, we’d evaluate the findings in the context of the business and what it means for them. For example, what changes would be made to the current marketing strategy for the business and what could this look like? For product development, the insights could be in the form of features that users need in the context of the industry and business.

For academia, if we used the model in a real-world setting, what would be the challenges? For example, if we were considering to do a study framed by a model, what impact does it have on data collection and analysis? After primary research has occurred, how did the model impact on the study? Should it be used again in the future? What are the implications? What gaps are there for future research?

The final and fourth layer is where the magic happens; where the buried treasure, those golden nuggets of insights, are found.

Key Takeaways

For a teacher marking a paper or for a business owner/manager reading a report, the interesting part is the fourth layer. This is what the teacher gives the highest marks for and this is what a business is paying a research team or consultancy to do and learn from.

In a business environment, these insights can be mapped out in analysis and synthesis workshops and developed as a team.

Doing critical thinking can lead to better recommendations and outputs. It gives customers a much clearer understanding of the thought process behind suggestions made for improvements. This process can show that you’ve understood the topic, analysed it, applied the learnings from the analysis to a specific business or case study and done the critical thinking to make actionable and relevant recommendations.