CRITICAL THINKING, PROBLEM SOLVING AND EFFECTIVE DECISION-MAKING FOR SUPERVISORS AND MIDDLE LEVEL MANAGERS

INTRODUCTION: Mastering critical thinking and problem-solving skills can help you make better decisions or recommendations – an essential competency in today’s knowledge workplaces. Critical thinking helps you to examine and improve thought processes, ask the right questions, challenge assumptions and consider varying viewpoints. Effective problem-solving helps you to properly identify and systematically work through a problem in a comprehensive manner, ensuring clarity when it comes time to make decisions or recommendations.

This course will demonstrate how critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making work optimally together, and will provide hands-on practice with tools that you can apply to your everyday workday tasks, big or small.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

At the end of the course, participants will be to;

• Define critical thinking and identify your critical thinking styles
• Work through the critical thinking process to build, analyze and evaluate varying viewpoints
• Improve key critical thinking skills, including active listening and questioning
• Analyze context and information to clearly understand and identify a problem
• Apply problem solving steps and tools
• Identify appropriate solutions using specific approaches
• Select the best technique for making decisions
• Avoid common decision-making mistakes

COURSE CONTENTS

What are Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving?

• Define Critical Thinking
• Strengths and Challenges when analyzing and solving problems
• Current problem-solving approaches
• Relationships among planning, critical thinking, and creative problem solving
• Role of critical thinking in meeting challenges
• Prioritize issues for greatest decision-making effectiveness and efficiency

Problem Solving

• The problem-solving process – various models
• Obstacles and counterproductive approaches
• Problem-solving techniques for groups and individuals
• Applying a problem-solving model to a workplace scenario

Decision Making

• Individual and collective decision making traps
• How to choose: criteria, goals and vision-based decision-making
• Individual and group decision-making tools and techniques
• Decision-making – practical application to a workplace scenario
• The Tools of Root Cause Analysis
• Applying Critical Thinking to Project Management
• Business and Critical Thinking
• Business Intelligence and Decision Making
• Business Intelligence Applications for Data Analysis

TARGET AUDIENCE: Departmental Managers, Supervisors, Project Managers, Team Leaders, and Leaders in any capacity etc.