THINKING FRAMEWORKS

Use a framework, clarify your thinking.

Start with your question. Find a suitable framework and see how to use it.

Choose by work stage

Start at a relevant stage and choose a suitable framework. The order helps you find your place; it is not a required sequence.

1. Define a problem

1-1 Identify the problem

Compare the current situation with the desired state and identify the gap.

Possible result: A problem statement and evidence of the gap

1-2 Organize the problem

Separate the issues and turn a broad concern into a question you can investigate.

Possible result: A structured question and investigation scope

1-3 Set priorities

Decide which issue needs attention first under your constraints.

Possible result: Priorities and the reasons for them

2. Understand the market and customers

2-1 Assess the environment and your business

Examine external conditions alongside your business's resources and capabilities.

Possible result: Relevant conditions, capabilities, and evidence gaps

2-2 Understand customers

Examine customer groups, needs, and experiences using available evidence.

Possible result: Customer insights and questions to check

2-3 Understand competitors

Compare competitors' offerings, activities, and capabilities.

Possible result: A comparison and possible areas of difference

3. Develop and compare ideas

3-1 Generate ideas

Explore several possible responses before judging them.

Possible result: A set of candidate ideas

3-2 Develop an idea

Turn an abstract idea into a proposal people can discuss.

Possible result: A more specific proposal and its assumptions

3-3 Compare and choose ideas

Compare candidates against explicit constraints and criteria.

Possible result: A choice, tradeoffs, and unresolved checks

4. Set a strategy and a plan

4-1 Choose a strategic direction

Consider business, market, customer, and positioning choices.

Possible result: Candidate directions and the reasons to explore them

4-2 Work out how to proceed

Examine what your direction requires and what may prevent it.

Possible result: A possible approach, dependencies, and checks

4-3 Set goals

Describe the intended result and how you will check progress.

Possible result: Goals and measures for reviewing them

5. Review and improve work

5-1 Review results

Compare what happened with what you intended and identify lessons.

Possible result: Observations, lessons, and next questions

5-2 Map how the work operates

Make activities, responsibilities, and constraints visible.

Possible result: A shared picture of the current work

5-3 Explore improvements

Consider changes to the work and what each would require.

Possible result: Improvement candidates and validation plans

6. Manage a team and work together

6-1 Align on goals

Make the team's direction and each person's contribution clear.

Possible result: Shared goals and responsibilities

6-2 Improve working relationships

Examine communication and cooperation using specific observations.

Possible result: Issues to discuss and ways to work together

6-3 Support motivation

Explore work conditions and goals without assuming what motivates each person.

Possible result: Questions, support options, and follow-up actions

7. Structure and share information

7-1 Communicate information

Organize the information so others can understand the point and its basis.

Possible result: A structured explanation or proposal

Framework overview ↗Compare frameworks ↗Try a search

Analyze markets

Swipe the table sideways on mobile →

Framework summary by scenario
Framework	Purpose	What to bring	What you will have	Limits and cautions
1-1-1As-Is / To-Be	Compare the current and desired states using consistent measures, then separate the observed gap from possible causes and solutions.	An observed current state, its evidence and measurement rules, and a desired state with a rationale and time horizon. Mark provisional targets explicitly.	A bounded gap statement and a next investigation or test. A proposed action remains separate from evidence that it will close the gap.	A target is not a forecast or a commitment. Different populations or observation windows may make a comparison invalid. The gap alone does not explain why it exists.
1-1-26W2H	Answer eight planning questions to align the purpose, audience, execution, timing, place, and resource limits of an activity.	An activity brief, known arrangements, resource limits, and unanswered questions. Bring the people responsible for operations and delivery into the review.	A compact activity brief with eight explicit dimensions, remaining checks, and a next action. Missing information stays visible.	The worksheet organizes a plan; it does not confirm demand, attendance, authorization, or feasibility. A budget cap is not actual spending, and an attendance target is not a result. The eight boxes do not represent a sequence or score.
1-1-35 Whys	Investigate a specific event through successive causal questions, keeping each explanation tied to evidence.	A bounded problem, the affected cases and time period, and records that can support or challenge each proposed explanation.	A causal investigation showing supported links, unresolved hypotheses, and the next evidence to collect.	Five is not a required number of questions. Stop when evidence runs out, and branch when there are multiple causes. A plausible chain is not proof of a root cause.
1-1-4Circle of control	Sort specific issues by what your team can directly change and what depends on someone else's decision, then plan a response for each.	A concrete problem, your role and authority, a time window, relevant records and external dependencies. Leave uncertain permissions open for checking.	Two groups of issues with reasons, one action you can take directly, and a plan to clarify, respond to and review external dependencies.	Control depends on the role, authority and time window; it does not make an individual responsible for everything. An external constraint still deserves attention. You can ask, negotiate or prepare alternatives, but cannot promise another person's reply or decision. Classification proves neither a cause nor an improvement.
1-2-1Logic tree	Break a broad question into explicit branches so you can examine its parts and decide what to investigate next.	One clear question, a basis for dividing it into branches, and evidence or open questions for each branch.	A structured investigation with defined branches, visible gaps, and specific checks for the next level of detail.	The shape of a tree does not establish causation or completeness. Check for overlap, missing branches, and changes in the question being answered.
2-1-1PEST analysis	Organize political, economic, social, and technological factors that could affect a defined business decision.	Dated observations and sources about the external environment, with their possible effects and uncertainties.	A scoped view of external factors and the evidence to check before acting.	This diagram does not forecast events or verify policy or market claims. Empty categories show missing evidence, not the absence of risk.
2-1-2Porter's Five Forces	Examine five sources of competitive pressure within a defined industry, recording mechanisms, evidence coverage and unanswered questions.	An industry and geography, a period, records on actors and alternatives, and evidence on entry and switching conditions.	An evidence map of five pressures, structural questions and conditional response investigations.	This is not five companies or an additive score. Substitutes meet the need differently from direct rivals. A partial list, a firm's qualification gap or a price card cannot establish industry concentration, margins or an entry/exit decision. Revisit classifications when the boundary changes.
2-1-3VRIO analysis	Examine value, rarity, imitation costs and organizational support for specific resources, preserving uncertainty in each judgment.	Specific resources, value records, a competitive scope, acquisition and imitation evidence, and organizational arrangements.	A resource-by-resource evidence table, conditional implications and checks on evidence or organizational gaps.	Useful is not rare; rare is not costly to copy; ownership is not organized use. Examine acquisition, imitation and substitutes. Unknown means unknown. Do not sum judgments into a score, success probability or claim of achieved sustained advantage.
2-1-4SWOT analysis	Organize internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats to clarify the factors affecting a decision.	Observations about your resources, capabilities, customers, competitors, and market conditions. Keep their sources and uncertainties visible.	A structured set of factors, gaps to investigate, and questions to explore when developing possible actions.	A completed diagram does not rank your options or prove that a strategy will work. Check the evidence and constraints before choosing an action.
2-2-1Pareto analysis	Rank categories by one measure and compare their cumulative share before choosing where to focus your investigation.	Category totals for one population, period and measure, with a consistent unit such as complaints, hours or GBP.	An editable chart with descending category values, each share and cumulative share, plus the scope and proposed follow-up.	The 80/20 pattern is a heuristic, not a required result. A low-frequency event may still have severe consequences. The worksheet calculates from the totals you enter; it does not classify records, detect overlapping categories or verify causes. Do not mix counts, money or currencies.
2-2-2RFM analysis	Compare recency, frequency and monetary value under consistent rules, then plan how to test customer outreach.	Customer summaries already calculated using one reference date, transaction window, order definition, refund policy and currency.	An editable RFM table with explicit definitions, proposed groups and a plan to check them.	Check transaction eligibility, units, and grouping rules before interpreting segments. RFM alone does not establish profit, lifetime value, or churn. An unknown value is not zero.
2-2-3Persona	Organize a user role, goals, working context, difficulties, and decision criteria while keeping research evidence separate from assumptions.	Interview and observation notes, the task being studied, and the limits of the sample. Identify which statements come from evidence and which need further checks.	A task-focused representative profile with supporting evidence, explicit assumptions, and a design question to test.	A persona is a synthesized profile, not a real individual or a measurement of the whole market. A fictional teaching example is not real user research. Shared goals among a few interviewees do not establish market size, willingness to pay, or universal behavior.
2-2-4Empathy map	Organize what one person sees, hears, thinks and feels, says and does, struggles with and hopes for, keeping records distinct from assumptions.	One defined person and task, numbered interview quotes and observation records, the scope of those records, and assumptions still to investigate.	A six-part empathy map with evidence types and specific questions for the next interview or observation.	Behavior does not reveal a person's thoughts automatically. Label quotes, observations, self-reports and team interpretations separately. One person's records do not establish a pattern across all customers, and a self-report is not observed behavior. Leave unsupported areas unknown rather than filling every space.
2-2-5Customer journey map	Trace one customer's task through touchpoints, actions and experiences, keeping evidence and unobserved stages visible.	One customer and task, start and end boundaries, touchpoint and action records in time order, the person's statements, and missing stages or assumptions.	An evidence-linked journey with unknown stages, friction and handoff questions, and proposed ownership and improvement checks.	A journey need not be linear or end in a purchase. Separate observed current experience from a proposed future experience; do not invent conversion to complete the final stage. Label feelings as self-reported or assumed. One person's path is not a group rate, and improvement opportunities still need testing.
2-3-14Ps marketing mix	Review product, price, place, and promotion together to make a coherent offer and identify what to test next.	A specific offer and audience, product details, price and units, purchase and delivery arrangements, and current communications. Bring relevant customer and operational evidence.	A four-part offer review, the mismatches to address, and a test of the proposed changes with explicit measures.	This is the product, price, place, and promotion marketing mix. The four boxes are categories, not a ranked matrix, numeric axes, or a required process sequence. A coherent mix does not prove demand, value, margin, or a causal effect on sales.
2-3-24Ps with offering and target analysis	Compare six explicit dimensions: target, value offered, product, price, place and promotion, retaining each claim's evidence status.	Comparable objects, selection rules, dated product and marketing records, price definitions, audience claims and customer evidence.	A six-dimension comparison, distinctions between products and benefits, and questions for positioning research.	A benefit is not a repeated feature list. Stated targets are not observed customer shares; promised value is not verified value. Listed prices do not establish transaction prices, profits or value for money. Preserve package and channel differences and unknowns; do not select a winner automatically.
2-3-3Value chain analysis	Disaggregate a business into linked primary and support activities, then check cost boundaries and possible sources of customer value.	A business and period, activity records, value clues, compatible cost records, allocation rules and handoffs.	An activity-and-link map, a bounded cost reconciliation and hypotheses for further investigation.	A value chain is not a supplier list, organization chart or fixed workflow. Separate support and count costs once. Disclose allocation assumptions and exclusions. High cost does not establish value; deleting work does not guarantee improvement. A selected revenue-minus-cost remainder is not net profit, and undisclosed rival costs stay unknown.
2-3-4Core competence analysis	Assess how a combination of skills, relationships, and processes creates customer value, resists imitation, and could support other markets.	Candidate capabilities, customer feedback, operating evidence, and information about how the capabilities have developed.	Evidence for a candidate core competence, gaps to address, and a plan to test its use in another setting.	Owning several stores or offering a low price does not establish a core competence. A plausible capability combination still needs evidence of value, difficulty of imitation, and transferability.
3-1-3Morphological Analysis	Separate a problem into dimensions, combine one choice from each, and record why some combinations conflict.	A bounded question, a few distinct dimensions, choices per dimension, compatibility evidence and unknown constraints.	A choice field, traceable exclusions, a manually selected concept and its remaining validation needs.	Multiplying choice counts gives formal configurations, not feasible solutions or success probabilities. Pairwise consistency cannot establish whole-system feasibility, permission, desirability or commercial merit. Keep preferences distinct from contradictions, and revisit omitted or overlapping dimensions.
4-1-1BCG growth-share matrix	Classify businesses by market growth and relative market share, then examine resource choices and uncertainty.	Business units or products, market growth estimates, relative market share, thresholds, and resource constraints.	A portfolio view with provisional categories and questions about investment, maintenance, or exit.	A quadrant is not an automatic investment or closure decision. Market growth is different from your own sales growth. The thresholds in this example are teaching assumptions, and no market measurements support its placements.
4-1-3TOWS matrix	Combine evidenced SWOT factors into SO, ST, WO, and WT action candidates, then state their assumptions, resource limits, and validation steps.	A shared goal and identified SWOT factors, ideally with IDs and sources. Keep unverified demand, competitive conditions, and resource estimates visible.	Traceable action candidates with a reason to consider them, assumptions to check, and conditions for continuing or stopping.	The four combinations are not a ranking and do not require four simultaneous initiatives. Unsupported combinations can stay blank. TOWS does not calculate priorities or establish that an action will work.
4-1-4STP analysis	Segment customers by meaningful differences, choose a priority group, and describe a position to test against their needs and alternatives.	Customer needs and behavior, evidence about potential groups, delivery capabilities, and known alternatives. Include the limits of reach, costs, and market-size evidence.	A segmentation basis, a priority target with reasons and tradeoffs, and a positioning hypothesis to check with that group.	Segments are working distinctions, not automatically fixed or mutually exclusive company categories. Positioning concerns the intended place in customers' minds relative to alternatives. A positioning sentence does not establish differentiation, demand, or favorable economics.
4-1-5Perceptual positioning map	Display relative positions on two defined dimensions, retaining data nature, sample size, calculation rules and unplaced objects.	Objects, respondent scope, dimensions, raw ratings or attributes, scales, calculations, missingness and data status.	A labeled map, traceable coordinates, unplaced objects and questions for perception or demand research.	Perceptions are not objective attributes; listed price is not perceived value. Keep populations, periods and scales compatible. Do not place unknowns at zero or the center. Empty space is not demand, and a mean does not describe everyone. This figure plots supplied 1–5 coordinates under an explicit teaching interval assumption; it does not run correspondence analysis, statistical inference or ideal-position selection.
4-2-1Business Model Canvas	Connect customers, value, delivery and economics across nine blocks, then identify the assumptions that need evidence.	What is known about the customers, offer, channels, relationships, payments, resources, activities, partners and costs. Identify assumptions and missing evidence.	An editable nine-block draft and a short list of assumptions to investigate before expanding the business.	A complete canvas is not proof of demand or profitability. It does not replace a business plan, financial model or customer research. Revenue is money earned from customers; gross margin is a separate measure after product costs.
4-2-3AIDMA model	Review Attention, Interest, Desire, Memory, and Action to identify missing information and obstacles before purchase.	A target audience, purchase goal, communication touchpoints, and observations with clear event definitions.	Communication gaps, proposed changes, and a plan to observe the purchase journey.	Page views, saves, and reservations may refer to different people and repeated events. Do not calculate a continuous conversion funnel without a consistent population and observation window.
4-3-2KPI tree	Connect an outcome to compatible counts and rates, specify the arithmetic, and keep targets and causal hypotheses separate.	An outcome definition, traceable counts from a compatible cohort, units, observation window, data source and a proposed target.	A metric tree with explicit arithmetic, a reproducible baseline, target assumptions and a next data check.	Decomposition is not causation. Numerators, denominators and outcome maturity must agree. Do not calculate through overlapping groups, unmatched periods or a zero denominator. Keep targets, leading indicators and measured effects distinct. The diagram illustrates a two-level product identity; other decompositions need their own operations.
4-3-3AARRR	Review acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral with explicit events, cohorts, observation windows, and denominators.	Counts or observations for a defined cohort, the events behind each measure, the relevant time windows, and known gaps in the data.	A shared record of five diagnostic areas and the evidence needed for the next investigation or experiment.	A lower count does not identify a cause. Revenue and referral can occur independently. Compare rates only when cohort membership, event definitions, and observation windows support the denominator; do not infer a conversion rate from adjacent cards.
5-1-3PDCA Review Sheet	Connect a plan, recorded execution, a comparable check and a conditional next action in one review sheet.	Cycle scope, comparable baseline, hypothesis, target and quality guardrail, execution records, denominators and exceptions.	An evidence-based P/D/C/A review, remaining explanations and a conditional next-cycle plan.	Separate plan, execution, interpretation and next action. Keep counts, percentage points and relative changes distinct. A before/after sample does not establish causation; a speed target does not override failed quality. This working sheet is not a certification checklist. Proposed standardization needs a decision; PDCA and PDSA terminology remains distinct.

More scenario matches do not mean a better framework. Choose for your specific question.How to use the library