Great employees aren't born; they're trained! We make learning simple, enjoyable and cost-effective. With business noew recovering from the Covid-19 lockdown, we understand that your organisation may have a limited budget for learning and development. That's why we can help you and your people with live (classroom or virtual) or self-paced online via our e-Courses.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

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- Problem Solving and Decision Making -

Course Overview

Today, organisations require more employees to be able to solve their own problems quickly by themselves or with colleagues, without having to rely on senior people or managers all of the time.

While “thinking or problem-solving skills” may seem natural, they’re not always intuitive and don’t come quickly or easily to many people. When faced with a problem or decision to make, employees need the right answer and because many organisations are running leaner, it’s becoming everyone’s job to learn how to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills in their roles.

During this one-day Problem Solving and Decision Making training course, participants regardless of their seniority will learn how to solve problems and make better decisions through many practical problem-solving and decision-making frameworks.

Every attendee will be given access to easy-to-use problem-solving templates and tools for almost any workplace situation where there is a problem that needs to be addressed or decisions  that need to be made.

Key Learning Outcomes

  • What problems do you need to solve at work, and why are they important to solve?
  • The difference between problem-solving vs decision making
  • Examples of poor and effective problem solving and decision making
  • What are the common barriers that hold most people back from solving problems and making good decisions?
  • UGI: (1) Understanding the problem (2) Generating possible solutions (3) Implementing the solution
  • How to collect data and interpret it correctly
  • Introduction to different problem-solving approaches you can use at work
  • Using force field analysis and other decision-making techniques
  • Techniques for testing, selecting and implementing the options. 
  • Techniques for identifying and defining the causes of the problem
  • Techniques to generate a list of viable options
  • How to review outcomes and evaluate the results of your decisions

Training Outline

Morning Session
  • Why are problem-solving and decision making essential skills to have?
  • Examples of badly handled problems and poor decisions – and the costs when it goes wrong
  • What problems you have to solve and the decisions you are expected to make
  • Empowering people to solve problems and make decisions
  • Approaches for problem-solving
  • How to identify the problem
  • Techniques for analysing problems
  • Where and how to gather information
  • What are your criteria for a solution
  • Generate solutions to problems
  • Deciding on the best solution
  • Implementing a solution
  • Checking if the problem has been solved
Afternoon Session
  • Problem-solving techniques
  • DeBono’s thinking hats
  • The 5 Whys
  • Ishikawa’s Fishbone
  • Force-field analysis
  • Delphi technique
  • Brainstorming
  • Mind mapping
  • Describing problems and decisions on paper
  • Presenting problems and decisions using PowerPoint
  • How to present your problems and solutions to your manager, clients, or team members
  • Other ways to sell your ideas and solutions
  • Develop your career by improving your reasoning and logic skill

Training Options

We realise every client is different. You may have only half a dozen people to train, or perhaps you’re running a conference and want a guest speaker or a trainer to undertake a high impact, short breakout session.

Whatever you have in mind, we want to help you achieve your training goals. Let’s start a conversation and find out what’s happening at your place and what you want your people to be able to do differently as a result of training. If you’re on a tight budget, we get that as well. Rest assured, we are good listeners, and we are here to help you achieve your outcomes.

  • 1-day Training (7 hours)
  • Half-Day Express (3 hours)
  • Lunch & Learn (60 minutes)
  • Online Training (Self-paced)
  • One-on-One (Zoom) Coaching