Turn your Thinking Around: New Approaches to Problem Solving

My aim in "Turn your Thinking Around: New Approaches to Problem Solving", is to help problem solvers think about the issues they face in different ways. We can easily get into a rut in our problem solving using the same tools over and over, and producing predictable answers. In this course, I introduce new problem-solving tools to help you think about problems in new ways and, hopefully, develop new solutions which will address a problem more thoroughly than previously.

The problem-solving tools I introduce are grouped into four categories:

1. New Thinking for when you want to think about things differently
2. New People for when you want to freshen up the mindsets of the people you’re working with
3. New Resources for when you want a new technique to try
4. And Counterintuition for when taking a non-conformist view might bring new ideas

This is the third course I have written on problem solving and decision making. All three courses cover different aspects of this fascinating field: • In Problem Solving and Decision Making Creatively, I cover a five-stage approach to problem solving and introduce some of the most used problem solving tools including the Problem Statement and Goal Statement; Stakeholder Analysis, Process Mapping, The Ishikawa Diagram, Data analysis and the Ideas Grid • In The Creative Accountant: Personal and Professional Problem-Solving Skills, I look at the three types of problem and the different tools that work best with each type of problem. The Critical problem is a crisis where a response is needed urgently. The Tame Problem is a situation where a standard problem-solving approach works well; and the Wicked Problem is a highly complex and multi-faceted problem where a more flexible approach is needed and where new tools can help. The new tools covered include the Four Frame Model, Perceptual Positions, Bright Spots Analysis and solution focussed approaches.

In this course, I introduce 11 new problem-solving tools that are designed to help enhance the thinking of any problem-solving team, particularly if they want a change from the “usual” tools.

I hope you find the course helpful.