MDP820 - Creative Problem Solving
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Course description

This is a one-day highly interactive workshop in which you will learn a well-developed process for generating and developing creative solutions to all kinds of problems. This will include a guided yet flexible approach to accessing our innate capacity for creative ideas. Starting by identifying barriers to new thinking, you will be re-introduced to the operating characteristics of the creative Smartware^TM we all are born with. You will take away a flexible and simple process for identifying opportunities, opening new paths of exploration, and generating break-out ideas when you need them, whether with colleagues, clients, or even when alone. Most of class time will involve working in small groups on both case studies and real participant-offered problems.

Who should attend

This program builds skills that are immediately usable by anyone who needs to approach problems or tasks innovatively. Typical attendees who find value in the workshop include:

• Team leaders
• Chairs of Task Forces
• Supervisors
• Any person who has to come up with innovative solutions

What you will achieve

• The ability to reframe problems/opportunities in unique ways


• A technique for conducting a simple but powerful analysis of your problem


• The ability to distinguish the characteristics of break-out ideas as opposed to the tried and true


• The use of a listening technique that will greatly increase the harvest of new ideas


• A strategy for developing attractive but fragile new ideas


• The knowledge to work any problem through an easy six-step process to an action-oriented solution


• Strategies for getting others on board and increasing commitment to follow-through

What you will learn

• Two-Channel Listening: a technique for noting and capturing one’s own inner connections, as well as relevant external information, when listening to someone else


• Problem/Task Recalibration: a strategy for getting below the surface to various facets of the stated task that capitalizes on the diverse viewpoints of team members


• Process Flow Diagram: a step-by-step guide to a group creative problem solving process


• Creative Idea Generation: strategies, techniques and tips for getting fresh ideas when they are needed


• Balanced Assessment: a simple, yet powerful, process for guiding the exploration and development of a new idea or direction


• Emerging Concept Format: a one page form that guides the fleshing-out of a new idea


• Action Planning for Creative Projects: strategies, techniques and tips for moving into and through the implementation phase of creative problem solving
  
  Course Outline
  
  Agenda
  
  • Introduction to Creative Problem-Solving: Baseline Exercise
    • Discussion exploring the parameters of Creative Problem Solving: participants’ assumptions and experiences.
    • Small groups engage in unaided creative idea generation on a given task under time pressure. Guided debrief establishes characteristics of creative ideas.
  • Creative Thinking Smartware^TM
    • Large group activity to explore the distinctions in thinking processes between standard and creative problem solving. Specific examples are drawn from the previous Baseline Exercise.
    • Techniques to generate creative ideas are identified and experimented with
  • Process Flow
    • A presentation of the key roles in a creative problem-solving session
    • Introduction of the six steps of any creative problem-solving process
    • Groups of three walk through the six steps
    • Teams practice the process on tasks / problems of their choice
  • Problem / Task Recalibration
    • A team exercise to present a method for exploring the various, and often hidden, facets of a presented problem.
  • Taking it home
    • Individuals and/or teams identify the specific concepts, strategies, techniques that they have found useful and apply them to actual to-do’s.
    • Post-workshop reinforcement materials distributed.