Our History

We are a family business, founded in Minnesota in 1994 as Vision Works LLC, which then became Thinking Tools LLC in Arizona in 2008. We have been serving customers worldwide for 20 years.

Our Purpose

We are a family business, founded in Minnesota in 1994 as Vision Works LLC, which then became Thinking Tools LLC in Arizona in 2008. We have been serving customers worldwide for 20 years.

Our Shared Vision

is of teams, everywhere in the world, using our products and techniques in organizations where the members create, share, and implement ideas and decisions to solve problems and create lasting value for themselves, their customers, and their communities.

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About Ed Ward, the founder

Ed’s focus as a consultant and as an entrepreneur is to help people in organizations improve the way they think, plan, organize, learn and perform. The outcomes are purpose-driven results that achieve strategic and operational goals. Most of his recent work involves the planning, design, facilitation, delivery, and monitoring of projects that implement Strategic Planning and Management, Performance Goals and Measurements, Team Development, Change Management, and Governmental Policy.
Since 1979, when he initiated his training in System Dynamics at MIT, Ed has been an advocate and practitioner of systems thinking, scenario planning, and computer simulation concepts applied to manufacturing, distribution, R&D, marketing, and professional services management and strategy. As a consultant and facilitator to executives and operating managers, he has led and partnered on projects in the automotive, energy, utilities, health care, financial services, education, textiles, construction, and public transportation industries involving organizational restructuring, competitive strategy, manufacturing strategy, new product planning, policy development and human resources.
Ed enjoyed a long term consulting relationship to a Big Five consultancy, beginning in late 1993, principally in support of the firm’s deployment of Information Age Accounting and its competencies in Facilitation, Systems Thinking and System Dynamics. He worked with its clients and professionals from a number of offices, including Houston, Dallas, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Charlotte, San Francisco, Boston, Boise, Denver and Phoenix. His other consulting clients have included Amoco, the Ford Motor Company, the Minnesota Department of Transportation, SourceNet Solutions, EquaTerra, Inc. as well as non-profit organizations his community.

Prior to launching his formal consulting career in late 1992 and VisionWorks LLC (now Thinking Tools LLC) in 1994, Ed was Director of Corporate Planning for Millipore Corporation, a global, high technology manufacturing company. While there, he advanced from

  • materials and logistics management (He is a Certified Fellow in the American Production and Inventory Control Society) to
  • multi-plant operations planning, including the design and deployment of ERP information systems, then on to
  • manufacturing strategy development,
  • technology planning and evaluation; and, finally, to
  • company-wide strategic business planning, involving close, collaborative relationships with the research, marketing and finance organizations.

He joined Millipore in 1978 after 14 years in manufacturing management positions with Polaroid, Data General, and Joy Manufacturing Co. In 1983, he interrupted his Millipore career to become Director of Operations Administration for Astra Pharmaceutical Products, but returned to Millipore in 1986 to direct the company-wide manufacturing strategy program.

Ed is a past president of the Boston Chapter of the Strategic Management Forum, the International Society for Strategic Management and Planning. He has spoken on The Systems Thinking Approach to Scenario Planning and on the Application of Computer Models for Competitive Dynamics at Strategic Management Forum Workshops, at the Strategic Management Society Conference, and at TQM-related venues. He also conducts training sessions in facilitation methods for Team Productivity and Systems Thinking. Ed is a graduate of St. Louis University, and pursued his MBA work at the University of Chicago and Boston University. Ed contributed a chapter in a popular business book, Learning From the Future: Competitive Foresight Scenarios (1997, John Wiley) titled “Dynamic Scenarios: Systems Thinking Meets Scenario Planning.” Ed has a TS/SI security clearance granted by the National Security Agency.

Our Business

Stand Out From The Rest

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Our Mission

Our firm has helped clients engaged in more than 100 different subsectors of the aerospace, space markets.

Our Core Value

Our firm has helped clients engaged in more than 100 different subsectors of the aerospace, space markets.

Our Vision

Our firm has helped clients engaged in more than 100 different subsectors of the aerospace, space markets.

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Testimonials

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What we do

We provide wide range of business services

Brainstorm Ideas

Create New Ideas

Envision the Future

Examine Complex Systems

Explore Future Scenarios

Marketing Strategy

Make Decisions

Brainstorm Ideas

Brainstorm Ideas

Our brainstorming tools and techniques are designed to go well beyond randomly generating and listing ideas. Brainstorming with VIS-IT™ hexagons means that ideas are no longer “stuck” in the order in which they were captured. Now they can be moved around to fit with related ideas, and thereby generate new ideas or insights that emerge naturally from their geometry, i.e., their close proximity to each other. Further, because ideas recorded on flip chart lists are separated from one another, they cannot easily be juxtaposed, one alongside another, to explore for potential combinations

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Create New Ideas

Create New Ideas

Our brainstorming tools and techniques are designed to go well beyond randomly generating and listing ideas. Brainstorming with VIS-IT™ hexagons means that ideas are no longer “stuck” in the order in which they were captured. Now they can be moved around to fit with related ideas, and thereby generate new ideas or insights that emerge naturally from their geometry, i.e., their close proximity to each other. Further, because ideas recorded on flip chart lists are separated from one another, they cannot easily be juxtaposed, one alongside another, to explore for potential combinations

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Envision the Future

Envision the Future

Phosfluorescently engage worldwide methodologies with web-enabled technology. Interactively coordinate proactive e-commerce via process-centric "outside the box" thinking. Completely pursue scalable customer service through sustainable potentialities. Objectively innovate empowered manufactured products whereas parallel platforms.

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Examine Complex Systems

Examine Complex Systems

Phosfluorescently engage worldwide methodologies with web-enabled technology. Interactively coordinate proactive e-commerce via process-centric "outside the box" thinking. Completely pursue scalable customer service through sustainable potentialities. Objectively innovate empowered manufactured products whereas parallel platforms.

View Detail
Explore Future Scenarios

Explore Future Scenarios

Phosfluorescently engage worldwide methodologies with web-enabled technology. Interactively coordinate proactive e-commerce via process-centric "outside the box" thinking. Completely pursue scalable customer service through sustainable potentialities. Objectively innovate empowered manufactured products whereas parallel platforms.

View Detail
Marketing Strategy

Marketing Strategy

Phosfluorescently engage worldwide methodologies with web-enabled technology. Interactively coordinate proactive e-commerce via process-centric "outside the box" thinking. Completely pursue scalable customer service through sustainable potentialities. Objectively innovate empowered manufactured products whereas parallel platforms.

View Detail
Make Decisions

Make Decisions

Phosfluorescently engage worldwide methodologies with web-enabled technology. Interactively coordinate proactive e-commerce via process-centric "outside the box" thinking. Completely pursue scalable customer service through sustainable potentialities. Objectively innovate empowered manufactured products whereas parallel platforms.

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Our team

Team Members

Lisa

Lisa

Product Designer

Jhon Wick

Jhon Wick

Marketing

Jonath Dark

Jonath Dark

Support Desk

Anna Jony

Anna Jony

Marketing

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