
What is critical thinking and why is it necessary?
How it differs from logical and creative thinking
Its role in work, business, and life
Basic principles: objectivity, rationality, evidence-based reasoning
Types of arguments (deduction, induction, abduction)
Strong and weak arguments
Building a convincing argument
Recognizing errors in reasoning
What are cognitive biases?
The most common ones (confirmation bias, anchoring, framing)
How biases affect the perception of facts and decisions
Practical techniques for reducing the influence of biases
How to distinguish facts from opinions
Verifying the accuracy of information
Evaluating sources: primary and secondary
Fact-checking and media literacy skills
Think like a troubleshooter in complex ai-era decisions, mastering quick triage, root-cause analysis, and actionable tools to localize problems, test hypotheses, and implement rapid solutions.
Explore root cause analysis with the five whys and Ishikawa diagrams, form hypotheses with evidence and falsifiers, and use minimal data, hypothesis logs, and Pareto coding to prioritize solutions.
Apply the 80-20 Pareto analysis to identify bottlenecks, map processes, and use decision matrices to prioritize actions, quantify impact in a common currency, and pilot high-benefit options.
Apply TRIZ to challenge assumptions and resolve contradictions in business by forming the ideal final result, exploiting hidden resources, and using the 40 inventive principles, ARIS, and ARRIS.
Explore advanced troubleshooting methods, including stratagems, paradoxical questions, and morphological analysis, to break cognitive inertia and form a personal mix of techniques for high-stakes, constrained tasks.
Build a critical thinking toolkit for better decisions in the AI era by combining troubleshooting methods and running one symptom, one pilot cycle; track X and Y metrics.
Master requirements elicitation by mapping stakeholders, resolving conflicts, and prioritizing value versus effort using techniques like interviews, workshops, observation, and prototypes, backed by a stakeholder register and elicitation tracker.
Analyze as-is and to-be processes with BPMN, identify bottlenecks and waste, and link improvements to requirements via user stories and metrics like cycle time and automation rate.
Learn how a business analyst translates business needs into clear requirements, manages backlog and change impact, and safeguards scope across agile, scrum, and waterfall to align business and IT decisions.
Decision-making models (OODA, Cynefin, cost-benefit)
Using analysis and arguments to make choices
Managing risk and uncertainty
Cases from business and everyday life
Application in business, education, and personal life
Critical thinking in negotiations and communications
Connection with creativity and innovation
Individual skill development plan
This course includes the use of artificial intelligence.
In a world where thousands of news items, posts, reports, opinions, and AI-generated answers hit you every day, the scarcest skill is no longer knowledge — it is the ability to think clearly.
Today, winners are not those who have read the most books.
Nor those who speak the loudest.
Winners are those who can:
separate facts from interpretations,
see logical fallacies where others see “convincing arguments,”
recognize manipulation before it affects decisions,
make balanced decisions under uncertainty.
This course is dedicated to exactly that.
It is based on practical experience in international companies, building HR systems at Preply and other businesses, and making hundreds of strategic decisions under pressure, with incomplete data and high responsibility.
Course program
First, you will explore the foundations of critical thinking: how it differs from logical and creative thinking, why it lies at the core of strong managerial decisions, and how an objective position is formed in complex situations.
Next, you will dive into logic and argumentation — learning to distinguish strong arguments from weak ones, identify reasoning errors, and build arguments that withstand questions, emotions, and politics.
A separate block is devoted to cognitive biases — hidden thinking traps that distort reality even for experienced leaders. You will learn how confirmation bias, anchoring, framing, and dozens of other effects work, and how to reduce their influence on decisions.
Then you will master information analysis and source evaluation: how to separate facts from opinions, verify data reliability, assess sources, and navigate the world of fakes, social media, and AI-generated content.
In the next module, you will study practical decision-making models (OODA, Cynefin, cost-benefit analysis), learn to account for risks and uncertainty, and apply rational approaches to real business cases.
The final block focuses on embedding this skill into everyday work: negotiations, communication, team management, and building a personal development strategy.
This course is not about abstract philosophy.
It is a tool that starts working from the very first lessons.
Important
On Udemy, you take the course without homework review and without receiving a Mike Pritula Academy diploma.
For the full version of the course with an official diploma, materials, and homework review, please visit the academy’s website.
If you want:
your opinion to be taken seriously,
your decisions to be reasoned, not intuitive,
to be seen as someone who “sees the whole picture,”
to stop being hostage to other people’s arguments and emotions,
— start now.
Most people remain at the level of reactions.
You can move to the level of leaders’ thinking.
Also included:
• Lifetime access to all materials and future updates
• Active instructor support in the Q&A section
• Certificate of completion (Udemy Certificate of Completion)
• 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked
• Practical skills for work and career
• Real business cases / projects
• Access to the student community
• A $1,000 program offered with a significant discount thanks to the platform