Business strategy. Plan and secure success.

This critical and creative thinking course will equip you with the methods and tools for improving your capacity to solve complex problems. The critical thinking skills will focus on how you frame a problem, consider a range of perspectives, and finally, how you critically analyse the potential factors and causes of the problem in order to focus on the right problem to solve. The development of your creative thinking skills will encourage you to generate ideas, explore new possibilities and solve problems in novel ways, both individually and with others.

In today’s workplace, innovation is necessary for keeping up with the constant and rapid changes. Exercising critical and creative thinking skills is vital for creating competitive offers and being first to offer new advantages for your organisation through innovative services and products. The key is to continue to develop your critical and creative thinking skills so that they emerge spontaneously when needed.

Aims

The aim of this course is to build your skills in critical and creative problem-solving in both workplace and everyday situations. Developing your critical and creative thinking will enable you to deliver stronger outcomes in the workplace and in leading others.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• understand the importance of critical thinking in problem-solving
• demonstrate skills in critical thinking by reframing a ‘problem’ and approaching problem-solving from different angles with a fresh perspective
• enhance your capacity to uncover assumptions, biases and world views 
• demonstrate skills in creative thinking
• combine both critical and creative thinking to approach problem solving in order to offer innovative solutions alongside others.

Content

Combining creative and critical thinking in the problem-solving process

• Experiencing a problem solving journey that integrates critical thinking and creative thinking to solve a real life problem
• Reflecting on the experience

Critical thinking exploration

• The importance of leaning into the problem without judgment
• The importance of maintaining a broad perspective and exploring multiple perspectives
• Deciding in a team on the solution to pursue
• Uncovering assumptions, biases and worldviews
• Causal layer analysis
• Critical reflective practice

Design your own innovation journey and incorporate the methods you will use

Reflections

Intended audience

This course is intended for anyone in business, government or creative industries who are seeking to apply critical and creative thinking to solve problems in robust and creative ways, whilst discerning the sources of truth.

Prerequisites

None

Delivery style

An interactive workshop, including lectures, group exercises, reflection and discussion.

Delivery mode

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught training
• Online training via the platform Zoom

Materials

All course materials are provided electronically using Dropbox. Printing services are not provided.