Creativity and Innovation (1 day course)- Virtual Training

What is creativity and why is it important? Let’s start with the most common misconception, you do not have to be ‘off the wall’ or ‘wacky’ to be creative. Naturally artists and people who work in the creative industries tend to exercise their creative muscles more than most but all they have done is continue to pursue in their careers what comes naturally. We are all born creative, after all if you want to find the most creative people in the world all you have to do is visit a playground! Sometimes however as we grow up we find ourselves conditioning out mind-set to subscribe to the norms set by others around us. If we choose to accept and believe others who tell us ‘It’s always been done that way’, ‘that will never work’, ‘they’ll never accept that’ etc then no wonder people begin to resist their natural urge to dream, test new ideas and push the envelope. Of course it is essential for our very existence to think in a logical manner. Many of us like to get down to brass tacks rather than play around in the clouds but at times opening the mind to possibilities is the best way forward.

“The trouble is, those that only consider brass tacks don’t always look at the copper tacks, or the steel tacks or the brass rivets.” Roger Von Oech

Creativity is a prerequisite of innovation and without innovation there simply is no future. At the conclusion of this course you will have genuinely surprised yourself at the level of creativity you possess. You will learn a series of simple, fun and proven techniques for being creative that have been used by (amongst many others) the Walt Disney Corporation, Pizza companies to design new pizzas & even the makers of the TV series ‘The Lone Ranger!’

Creativity and Innovation (1 day course)- Virtual Training - Timetable

09:30 - 09:45 Coffee & course and individual objectives

09:45 - 10:00 How creative are you? – a self analysis

10:00 – 10:15 Setting the right climate for creative thinking Using colour, music, toys, powerful questions and energy to strip away the limitations people impose upon themselves.

10.15 – 10.30 The fastest way to overcome any fear of change.

10:30 – 10:45 Break

10:45 – 11:30 Getting the creative muscles working A series of three simple exercises designed to stretch the imagination, think outside of the box and stimulate innovative thinking

• Childs play
• The 3rd party perspective – an alien! >
• Outrageous opposites

11: 30 – 12:30 Creativity for logical thinkers. Two systems each of which uses a step-by-step analytical thinking process to generate creative ideas

• The 3X3X3 matrix
• The morphological matrix

12:30 – 13:15 Lunch

13.15 – 14.15 Thinking in groups Three proven techniques for creative thinking in groups

• Brainstorming the ‘right way
• Mind maps
• Building blocks

14:15 – 14.30 Break

14:30 – 15 :30 Powerful techniques that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by pushing you to move outside your habitual ways of thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of a decision and spot issues and opportunities which you might otherwise not notice.

16:00 - 16:20 Preparing a personal action plan. Each participant creates a list of actions to apply the principles taught on the course to their own situation. Attention is paid to preparing and planning how to use one or more of the creative and innovative thinking processes to live challenges back at work.

16:20 : Course review and close