Solutions
ThoughtLink is a research and consulting company that improves individual and organizational learning and effectiveness by answering questions related to:
Team Dynamics
"Teamwork" has become a vastly distributed endeavor and with it there are new challenges. Distributed teams are not physically located together and work across time, distance, organizational, and occasionally cultural boundaries. These virtual teams are on the rise - from the war on terrorism and its focus on coalition building to the globalization of the economy and the increasing number of teleworkers.
ThoughtLink understands first-hand the opportunities and challenges associated with distributed organizations because it is a virtual company, with employees working from their homes in multiple U.S. states. The company has extensively researched which technologies support and hinder effective collaborations and which factors maintain enthusiasm in unconventional work arrangements.
By linking people and technologies, ThoughtLink helps individuals and organizations overcome physical and organizational separation to enable teams to work, train, and communicate more frequently and efficiently. One way ThoughtLink accomplishes this is through the development and use of collaboration and games to assess team-based command and control, decision-making and communication styles. Another approach we take is to conduct job task analyses to investigate necessary components of jobs.
These activities get to the heart of team dynamics and help individuals understand their role within the virtual team, how to work with varying communication and work styles, and the best way to share information and knowledge.
ThoughtLink believes that an organization is only as good as its people. Encouraging communication and maintaining awareness between dispersed work units is key to achieving effective team collaboration.
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Organizational Communications and Decision-Making
ThoughtLink goes beyond team dynamics to better understand and improve organizational learning and effectiveness. To do this, the company uses novel methods such as gaming, storytelling, and knowledge management techniques to look at decision-making, resource allocation, and data visualization.
ThoughtLink works with organizations to develop the decision support systems that help organizations better understand what their business needs are before making any long-term decisions. The company has helped clients make informed decisions about their needs by conducting user surveys, interviews, and knowledge acquisition sessions to identify key requirements.
Informed decision-making also involves understanding the resources of the organization. With their customized capability analyses, ThoughtLink compares company performance and available skills and experience against competencies needed to carry out job functions. This allows organizations to streamline their workforce and maximize the potential of individual team members.
With data visualization a company can step into the minds of their teams to see how they make decisions. This process takes decision-making out of the mind of the individual or team to display and capture the process for analysis. ThoughtLink has allowed organizations to do this through the use of games. Additionally, the company has conducted experiments and research on how to best measure decision-making as well as developed questionnaires that measure personality traits and work styles.
By leveraging Internet technologies and simulations for education and training, using games for research and analysis, increasing collaboration among virtual teams, and maximizing shared situational awareness; ThoughtLink equips organizations with the tools necessary to improve institutional knowledge and organizational effectiveness.
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Technology Application Assessment
The right technology can be instrumental in helping to increase communication and productivity for virtual teams and organizations - but can simultaneously create challenges. ThoughtLink simplifies the requirements analysis and technology evaluation by providing organizations with the resources they need to decide which technologies to implement, how to effectively implement them, and when and where to make their technology investments.
By focusing on people, processes, and technologies, ThoughtLink helps organizations discover which technological tools best suit their needs and justify an investment in the product. ThoughtLink brings together a breadth and depth of experience in technical consulting, software integration, and experiment design, execution and analysis to allow organizations to streamline the technology selection process. Using this experience, ThoughtLink identifies, compares, analyzes, and recommends the best technology and tools to fit the customer's needs. These technologies include collaboration technologies, data mining and visualization tools, and training products including models, games, and simulations.
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