Developing Your Creative Potential

Discover new ways to break through mental barriers, ho-hum thinking and roadblocks

Do you wish you could apply creative thinking at work to try new things? Do you doubt your own capacity for developing creativity and innovation? Do you have trouble getting creative thinking and solutions from your team?

Relying on yesterday’s ideas, products and assumptions can spell failure and be a detriment. Now you can learn proven creative thinking techniques to generate new ideas and get a blueprint for establishing a climate of innovation in this lively, interactive and hands-on course. You will discover new ways to break through mental barriers, ho-hum thinking and roadblocks—in order to improve performance, stimulate creative thinking and unleash the creative potential in yourself and your team.

Course Objectives

• Understanding your role as manager and leader
• Establishing clear objectives and standards of performance for your team
• Managing your workload using effective prioritization and delegation techniques
• Maximizing your influencing skills
• Building an effective team
• Developing and leveraging the capabilities of team members
• Describe the basics of motivation. Define motivation as a process, and describe some theories about how motivation can affect your productivity.
• Understand and develop skills necessary to set goals and complete work on time
• Recognize internal and external influences on our daily planning and decision making
• Use basic planning process tools to plan work strategy
• Set goals effectively and efficiently
• Learn how to establish and maintain task deadlines
• Consider methods of improving decision making
• Why do some people find problem solving an exciting challenge, where others find it stressful? How do some managers make quick and productive decisions while others put off crucial decisions until the last minute? Which of the two statements best describes your attitude to problem solving and decision making?
• Estimate Work Scheduling time and costs using proven techniques

Course Outline

Team Building, People Management and Motivation

• How high-performing teams work?
• Identifying team roles
• Teams in practice: teambuilding exercise
• Motivation and reward
• Building and sharing a vision
• Different approaches to leadership

Techniques for engaging employees

• Informal participative decision-making programs
• Job enrichment,
• Continuous improvement
• Self-managed work teams.
• Quality circles
• Informal and formal consultation processes
• The establishments of charters with employees

Global best practices of Motivation

• Overview of motivation
• Identifying motivating and unmotivating factors
• Discussing automatic negative thoughts
• Developing your motivation
• Overview of the motivation process
• Discussing the motivation process
• Discussing the benefits of motivation
• Discussing motivation theories

What Is 'Strategy'?

• The Theory & The Practice
• Differences Between Strategic Thinking & Tactical Thinking
• The Impact Of Improved Strategy On Your Business Success
• Strategic Planning Vs Strategic Management
• Thinking Strategically
• Undertaking The Strategic Process
• The Tools & Techniques For Undertaking External Analysis

PESTLE

• Porter's Five Competitive Forces
• Competitive Advantage
• Growth Drivers
• Competitor Profiling
• Breaking Industry Compromises
• Scenario Planning

Scenario Development

• Uncertainty-Importance Grid
• The Tools & Techniques For Carrying Out Internal Analysis
• SWOT Analysis
• Balanced Scorecard

Strategic Planning

• The Stages Of Planning A Strategy
• Strategic Planning Techniques
• Building A Business Case
• Communicating Your New Strategy

Implementing Strategic Change Projects

• Understanding Change Management
• Goal Setting, Responsibility Allocation, & Monitoring Performance
• Motivating People To Embrace Strategic Changes

Development of Strategic Plan Reviews

• Purpose Of Reviews
• Development Review Cycle
• Development Of Monthly Review Cycles
• Differences Between Monthly Reviews & Yearly Reviews

The Rational Approach to Problem-Solving (Kepner-Tregoe)

• Techniques of Recognizing Problems
• Difference between Causes and Symptoms
• The Helicopter Approach
• Problem Analysis
• Decision Analysis
• Potential Problem Analysis
• Case Study and Debrief

Applying Effective Decision Making Skills in the Workplace

• Encouraging creative problem solving for continuous improvement
• Removing blocks to creative problem solving
• Convergent versus Divergent Thinking
• Divergent Thinking Skills for solving problems
• Using SCAMPER techniques to approach problem solving
• Applying SCAMPER techniques to make effective decisions

Work Initiating, Planning and Scheduling

• The Work Charter
• Stakeholder Identification
• The Imperative of Planning
• Planning Definition
• Work Planning Overview
• The Work Plan
• Developing the Mission, Vision, Goals and Objectives of the Work
• Basic Work Planning Steps
• Identifying Success Criteria
• Developing the Requirements
• Scope Definition
• Procurement Planning: “Make or Buy” Decision
• Defining the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• The Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS)
• The Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)
• Defining and Sequencing Work Activities
• Estimating Activity Resources and Durations
• Staffing Management Plan
• Scheduling the Project Work
• Estimating Costs and Determining Budgets
• The Performance Measurement Baselines (PMB)
• Communication Planning
• Quality Planning

Course Methodology

A variety of methodologies will be used during the course that includes:

• (30%) Based on Case Studies
• (30%) Techniques
• (30%) Role Play
• (10%) Concepts
• Pre-test and Post-test
• Variety of Learning Methods
• Lectures
• Case Studies and Self Questionaires
• Group Work
• Discussion
• Presentation