This intensive one-day course on Critical Thinking and Problem Solving is designed to empower professionals with the skills necessary to tackle complex challenges and make informed decisions effectively.

This course offers a deep dive into practical problem-solving frameworks and critical thinking techniques, ensuring participants can navigate intricate issues with clarity and creativity. By embracing principles-based decision-making and innovative analytical approaches, participants will not only enhance their personal competencies but also contribute to their organisation's strategic goals and uphold public trust in their decision-making processes.

This course is essential for anyone looking to foster a culture of thoughtful and effective problem resolution within their teams and organisations.

Through this course participants will develop the skills and knowledge to:

• Apply a problem-solving framework to facilitate effective problem-solving and decision-making within teams and departments
• Utilise critical thinking to systematically dissect and address routine and complex issues.
• Apply good governance principles to ensure ethical integrity and public trust in proposed solutions
• Utilise innovative problem definition and disaggregation techniques for clearer insight
• Apply critical reasoning and creative thinking to generate, evaluate and recommend options that serve the community and support council strategies
• Develop actionable strategies for stakeholder engagement.

Thinking about Thinking

• Thinking models
• Critical thinking
• Creative thinking

What is Principles-Based Decision Making?

Problem Solving          

• What is problem solving?
• Bullet proof problem solving          

Step 1:  Define the Problem  

• Problem Statement       
• Problem definition worksheet 
• Revising your problem statement
• Common issues in problem definition       

Step 2:  Problem Disaggregation       

• Logic trees
• Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE)           

Step 3:  Prioritisation – Pruning your Logic Tree       

• Team processes in problem disaggregation and prioritisation      

Step 4:  Build a Workplan      

Step 5:  Conduct Analyses     

• Analysis Shortcuts
• 5 whys   
• Root cause Analysis       
• Big guns of analysis             

Step 6:  Synthesise Findings  

• Summarise your findings   

Step 7:  Communicate             

• Stakeholders
• Basic pyramid structure
• Argumentative structure
• Grouping structure

Reflection, Action and Close

Costs and group limits may vary.

Minimum group size: 10

Maximum group size: 16

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