Creative Problem Solving
You may be surprised that creative thinking is a learned skill; it’s not purely a genetic feature of “gifted” individuals. 95% of all “new” ideas are derivatives of existing ideas present in other environments that we don’t frequent, or they are combinations of existing ideas with a few twists.
You might also be surprised that the research shows that “brainstorming” as a group has been repeatedly shown to be less productive of new ideas than one person working alone. We listen to the loudest person in the room and agree with their idea.
In this one-day course, you’ll discover some simple techniques that reliably generate novel ideas in short timescales. They are easy to use in any environment and with people who have no prior experience.
 |  |  |
| Designing a Creative Environment | Tools and Techniques | Unleashing the Team |
| We all fear criticism, and in a typical office environment, it is normal to personalise ideas, make fun of new concepts, and defend the status quo. It’s not surprising that a call for new ideas can be a fruitless exercise. We’ll show you the simple steps that are required to make the environment safe for people to present ideas without fear and to help with “creative abrasion”. We’ll also take you through the research that shows how safe environments can be made more likely to generate new ideas, without breaking the bank. | Many techniques can be used to generate new ideas. We’ll take you through three of the techniques that are proven to work in the majority of cases and are simple to apply. We’ll apply a systems thinking approach, a systematic technique, and a lateral thinking technique to illustrate the different approaches. We’ll apply these to some simple examples and explore some case studies from the real world that demonstrate their power. | The different tools can be used with teams that are not skilled in their use initially, and still achieve great results. We’ll show you how to do this and the facilitation techniques that are proven to work in a myriad of environments. We’ll practice them on the course which is highly interactive, so you’ll leave feeling confident that you can solve any problem you face! |
Course Options
This one-day course is typically run in-house and is configured to suit your particular needs. The tools and techniques taught can be adjusted to fit the complexity of the requirement. The course is often combined with other courses that See The Light offers.