Overview

The premise for the course Creative Decision Making is, "Out of quantity comes quality." In a highly interactive format, participants are pushed to brainstorm and make new connections. This is done to encourage participants to think divergently and dramatically increase the sheer number of ideas generated.

Participants also learn a process for objectively assigning value to ideas within the context of the organization's vision and key strategies. Ideas are evaluated from an opportunity perspective versus a problem solving perspective (something we want but don't have versus something we have but don't want).

Depending on the needs of the group or team, the Creative Decision Making process can be expanded to help team members understand their personal creativity styles and how those styles impact the team's ability to innovate. Experiential learning about how the fear of change affects both individual and team creativity can also be integrated into the Creative Decision Making process.

The core of the Creative Decision Making process can be implemented in a one day session or two, half-day sessions. The optional content described below adds from a half-day to a full day to the course (making the total length of the course one to two days).

Objectives

• Learn the relationship between quantity and quality in breakthrough thinking 
• Understand how a clear vision for the business affects creativity 
• Understand how team members encourage or discourage creativity 
• Learn techniques for prioritizing and building consensus 
• (Optional) Verify or discover ones creativity style-and learn the strengths and weaknesses of each style 
• (Optional) Learn to recognize when the fear of change is a barrier, and how to get past that fear

Outline

• Vision or ReVision. Determine whether you need to create a new vision for your market. 
• Personal and group creativity. How our teachers, mentors, parents, and peers have "trained" us to learn. 
• Divergent thinking. Creativity exercises. 
• Vision and innovation. Evaluating ideas in the context of desired outcomes. Techniques applied to individual and team list(s) of ideas. 
• (Optional) Personal creativity style. Discovering why we innovate so differently. Learning to apply different creativity techniques based on the desired outcome. 
• (Optional) Fear and creativity. Quality versus innovation. Diagnosing your organization and team for "cocooning". Clarifying the kind of innovation you need.