It has been said that computer scientists are modern-day problem solvers. So it is impossible to understand computational thinking without understanding the problem-solving skills and techniques of the computer scientist. Of course, problem solving did not begin with computers, nor are computers essential to solve many problems; and, of course, the problemsolving skills common to computer scientists are useful far outside the world of computers. It would be impossible to capture all the ways that computer scientists solve problems, but there are four strategies regularly employed by computer scientists that are at the core of this modern style of problem solving:

1. Problem definition
2. Logical reasoning
3. Decomposition
4. Abstraction

In addition to their significant utility in computational problem solving, each of these techniques has numerous applications aside from computer science.