In today's abundance of information, making decisions requires new skills to assess what you need and when you know enough to make decisions. You will learn decision making techniques as part of an interactive and structured approach to problem solving.

During this course, you will work with a challenging and complex case from your own work environment. In doing so, you will become aware of your own preferences and pitfalls. You will conduct an exploratory stakeholder analysis to map the problem environment and assess the consequences and impact the problem can have.

This will ultimately lead to a SMART problem definition that is a clear entry point for your data collection. During the second day of the course, you will delve deeper into root cause analysis and select the cause on which you wish to focus. You will practice generating a broad range of ideas for new solutions and bringing them back to practical solutions. This gives you solid ground for sustainable solutions which are supported by stakeholders and which may have great impact in your organization.

After this course participants, will:

· Select and define problems, assessing their wider consequences and impact

· Assess different stakeholder perspectives, risks and barriers to action

· Take informed decisions and feel comfortable dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity in decision making

· Contribute confidently to group decision making

· Analyze problems to identify root causes

· Identify realistic solutions to achieve continuous improvement

· Apply a creative approach in the development of these solutions

Pre-course preparation

· In consultation with your manager, identify 2-3 development goals relating to your problem solving & decision making skills.

· Bring a short description of a work related problem

Half day outline:

Using the unique PSDM model (Fishbone)

· Selecting the problem to solve

o Defining the problem

· Decision making in groups

o Decision making in different cultures

· Choosing the approach

o SMART

o Data collection

Working the cause

· Identify causes for the problem

o Basics for an effective root cause analysis

· Converging and selecting the cause to focus on (PARETO analysis )

· Designing a solution

Decision Making - Working the Solution

· Understanding what skills you need to follow up on the solution

· Prepare a plan for solving the work related problem

· Setting your SMART goals