Innovation & Creativity for Project Managers

 

This workshop is geared toward helping participants gain the power to think more creatively, generate and implement your ideas, and practice performance-enhancing techniques to drive professional, personal, and organizational growth. During the workshop participants will practice creative thinking methods and learn how to align personal ideas with corporate needs to add value and enhance individual and team performance.

 

What You Will Experience?

  • Hands on practices that help promote creative thinking and innovation
  • Maximizing the connection between taking risks and creative thinking
  • How to leverage your own creative strengths
  • Brainstorming tools and techniques to cultivate creative thinking and generate ideas and solutions
  • Techniques for developing, analyzing and selecting options
  • Practices and guidelines that create an innovative work environment
  • Real-world practice: opportunity spotting/solution generating

How You Will Benefit?

  • Practice creative thinking methods to generate ideas and solutions
  • Turn existing problems into opportunities for growth
  • Discover new techniques for securing enthusiasm for new initiatives
  • Encourage out-of-the-box thinking
  • Apply creative thinking techniques to foster innovation and improve systems, products and processes
  • Enhance morale, group performance and collaboration

Learning Objectives and Outline

Creative thinking is essential to any organization. Relying on yesterday’s ideas, products, and assumptions may prevent your organization from meeting the demands of today’s dynamic environment and the future demands of a competitive world. During this lively, interactive, hands-on seminar participants will learn proven creative thinking techniques to generate new ideas and develop a blueprint for establishing a climate of innovation. Participants will discover new ways to break through mental barriers, ho-hum thinking and roadblocks in order to improve performance, stimulate creative thinking and unleash the creative potential.

 

Main Course Objectives:

  • Explain the concept of present-mindedness
  • Unlock the creativity embedded in everyone
  • Increase your ability to utilize right-brain thinking
  • Enable you to think and perceive “holistically”
  • Begin a transition from Linear thinking to Quantum Thinking
  • Practice an Innovation Process using the Innovation Tower®, which is designed to walk you through a path of discovery, creative thinking and mind flexing exercises that will lead you to your own top innovation projects.

Course Outline:

  1. Introduction
    1. What Makes a Person Creative?
    2. How can Creativity and Innovation Improve Team Performance?
    3. Concepts of the Innovation Tower – Preparing to Create
  2. Objectives of the Session
    1.  Develop the Ability to Switch on Your Creativity for Idea Generation and Effective Problem Solving
    2. Develop a Process for Innovation
    3. Practice the Innovation Process
  3.  Course Topics
    1. The Leadership Challenge
      • Leadership and the Importance of Creativity and Innovation
      • Establishing an Environment of Creativity and Innovation
    2. Present Mindedness
      • Preparing the Mind for Creativity
      • Unlocking Your Innovative Talents
      • The Voice of Judgement
      • Right Brain Thinking
      • Developing Personal Creativity
    3. Developing Creative Solutions
      • Old Tools – New Uses
      • Understanding Different Communication Styles
      • Techniques for Thinking From Different Perspectives
      • Quantum Thinking
    4. The Innovation Tower Exercise – A step by step process for:
      • Promoting Creative Problem Solving for Product Development or Process Improvement
      • Enhancing Team Performance
      • Developing an Idea “Treasure Chest” and Bright Idea Notebook
      • Team Activities That Will Unlock the Collective Creative Potential
    5. Closing
      • Summary of Key Points, Tools, and Techniques for Creativity
      • Connecting to the PMBOK Guide Knowledge Areas
      • Questions and Open Discussion
      • Recommendations for Additional Reading and Reference

Who Should Attend?

Project Managers, project sponsors, team leaders, directors, supervisors, employees at any level who desire to improve their ability to think more creatively and generate new ideas to resolve issues, improve processes or to improve personal or organizational performance.

Materials

Participants in this program will receive a “Innovation & Creativity for Project Managers” workbook that serves as a good reference and refresher in the future.

Recommended Products

PMP Practice Exams

Studying for your PMP?

This exam simulation course is formatted to help prepare you for the PMP exam based on the January 2021 Exam Content Outline and the PMBOK 6th Edition.  

Popular Workbooks

We offer two workbooks to provide thoughtful exercises and tips around key project management topics.

Project Risk Board Game

Project Risk Board Game

  • Learn about Project Risk in this Interactive Game
  • Great for team events and students of project management
  • Learning Aide for Trainers
  • Teach Project Risk Management

Find out More

Contact Us

Want to chat with us about a workshop for your team or learn more about any of our services?

Our Customers

Don’t take if from us, listen to what our customers are saying…

Hear From Our Customers

I want to thank you again for putting together an excellent workshop.  I have taken several courses on PM and I have to say, without a doubt, I left this one with more take-a-ways that are applicable to my work in product development than any other… After 40 years of managing projects of various sizes, I think I am finally able to transition from a dominating “seat of the pants” approach to an approach that is much more disciplined.  Never too late, I guess.

Eugene G. McNurlen, P.E.Project ManagerApplied Engineering Systems Trane