Overview

The “2010 Global IBM CEO Study” was published and released in May 2010. It’s one of the largest one-on-one CEO interview studies, surveying 1,541 CEOs, general managers and senior public sector leaders from 60 countries and across 33 industries.

The results of the survey emphasise the importance of creative problem solving techniques and how this contributes towards innovative solutions required to meet complex challenges. The four primary findings of this year’s survey are as follows:

Today’s complexity is only expected to rise and more than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage it. Seventy-nine percent of CEOs anticipate even greater complexity ahead. However, one set of organisations we call them ‘Standouts’ has turned increased complexity into financial advantage over the past five years.

Creativity is the most important leadership quality, according to CEOs. Standouts practice and encourage experimentation and innovation throughout their organisations. Creative leaders expect to make deeper business model changes to realise their strategies. To succeed, they take more calculated risks, find new ideas and keep innovating in how they lead and communicate.

The most successful organisations co-create products and services with customers, and integrate customers into core processes. They are adopting new channels to engage and stay in tune with customers. By drawing more insight from the available data, successful CEOs make customer intimacy their number one priority.

Better performers manage complexity on behalf of their organisations, customers and partners. They do so by simplifying operations and products, and increasing dexterity to change the way they work, access resources and enter markets around the world. Compared to other CEOs, dexterous leaders expect 20 percent more future revenue to come from new sources.

Our creative problem solving workshop addresses both traditional techniques and the latest approaches to resolving the complex challenges currently facing organisations. Our integrated approach includes lateral thinking techniques and exercises to stimulate creativity thus ensuring learning takes place within a fun and productive environment. This fusion of technique with creativity ensures the workshop remains unique as a holistic problem solving intervention.

Course Outcomes

The course will provide participants with the ability to:

• Understand and demonstrate the importance of creativity in problem solving and organisational activities

• Understand the creative problem solving process including analytical and creative thinking

• Understand different approaches required for successful creative problem solving

• Learn and understand problem solving techniques which include:

• Brainstorming / Reframing Matrix / Paired Comparisons / Ishikawa Chart / SWOT Analysis / The 5 W’s / Cause and Effect / Six Sigma / Appreciative Inquiry

• Understand barriers to creative thinking and apply lateral thinking techniques to solve problems

• Understand the importance of the relationship of creative problem solving and innovation in organisations and there impact on the growth and development of the organisation

• Understand the difference between growth and development of an organisation and the factors required for these to be successful

• Understand measurement techniques including PDCA and Benchmarking

• Apply what they have learned

Target Audience:

Team Leaders, Middle or Junior Management/ Supervisors, Service Delivery, Internal and External Customer Support Staff, IT Staff