Creative Problem Solving

In the past few decades, psychologists and businesspeople alike have discovered that successful problem solvers tend to use the same type of process to identify and implement the solutions to their problems. This process works for any kind of problem, large or small.

The Creative Problem-Solving course will give participants an overview of the entire creative problem-solving process, as well as key problem-solving tools that they can use every day. Skills such as brainstorming, information gathering, analyzing data, and identifying resources will be covered throughout the course.

Learning Objectives:

Understand problems and the creative problem-solving process
Identify types of information to gather and key questions to ask in problem solving
Identify the importance of defining a problem correctly
Identify and use four different problem definition tools
Write concrete problem statements
Use basic brainstorming tools to generate ideas for solutions
Evaluate potential solutions against criteria, including cost/benefit analysis and group voting
Perform a final analysis to select a solution
Understand the roles that fact and intuition play in selecting a solution
Understand the need to refine the shortlist and redefine it
Understand how to identify the tasks and resources necessary to implement solutions
Evaluate and adapt solutions to reality