We cannot accept walk-in registrations for this workshop.
This workshop will be limited to 25 attendees.

Event Topic: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making within a Project Environment

Synopsis:

Improve your decision-making capabilities through critical thinking, structured reasoning, and creative problem analysis. Effective decision makers are those rare individuals who are able to consistently identify and choose the best option among multiple alternatives. Their decisions are imaginative, reasoned, and defensible. 

In this course, you will be provided with the training and tools necessary to become an inventive, logical decision maker. You'll explore a structured way to approach and dismantle problems, and you'll learn to clarify problems in terms of objectives and issues, with a view toward optimum outcomes. 

Applying the techniques of critical thinking allows you to dismantle complex problems and to understand the inputs and implications of your thought processes. 

This training allows you to develop positions on issues that are logical and explicable to others. After completing the course, you'll understand why most decisions are of poor quality and you will be able to impose quality controls on your decisions and the decisions of others. 

What You'll Learn 

• Quality control in decision making 

• How thinking and reasoning processes operate 

• Natural barriers to sound reasoning 

• Where to look for bias and assumptions in problem analysis 

• Structure, standards, and ethics of critical thinking 

• Inputs and implications of thought processes 

• How to control and evaluate your thought processes 

• Understand problems from multiple perspectives 

• Techniques for structuring the comparison of alternatives 

• Formulating creative solutions 

• Analytical decision analysis techniques such as sequencing, sorting, time lines, and matrixes 

Hands-On Exercises 

• Dismantle reasoning into the elements of reason 

• Judge the elements of reason based on standards 

• Problem solving from a number of different perspectives 

• Creativity and the decision-making process 

• Structure the analytical process with a matrix (optional) 

• Analyze decision options using decision trees 

• Evaluate decision options using probabilities 


Who Needs to Attend

Any professional who is, or will be, making important business decisions, including: 

department managers, directors, supervisors, project managers, IT project 

managers, project coordinators, project analysts, project leaders, senior project 

managers, team leaders, product managers, program managers, associate project 

managers, stakeholders, team members, and all other professionals. 


Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course. 

Follow-On Courses 

• IT Project Management 

Course Outline 

1. What is Reasoned Decision Making? 

• What are the barriers to reasoning well? 

• What are the qualities of reasoned decision processes? 

• Natural Barriers to Sound Reasoning 

• Quality problems with intuitive decision-making processes 

2. Critical Thinking 

• An Introduction to Critical Thinking 

• The Structure of Reasoning 

• Standards of Critical Thinking 

3. Problem Analysis and Decision Making 

• Problem statements 

• Using collaboration 

• Focus in and out 

• Structure the analysis 

4. Imposing Creativity on the Choice of Solutions 

• Suspend judgment 

• Imagine courageously 

• Think beyond conventional wisdom 

• Question everything and everyone 

• Imagine backwards from the ideal 

• Restate the problem 

• Dismantle the problem 

5. Analytical Decision-Making Techniques 

• Matrixes (optional) 

• Decision trees 

• Probability 

Bio:

Michelina DiNunno is a management professional with extensive experience building high performing teams, leading organizational change initiatives and championing continuous improvement. She has led large-­‐scale projects in various capacities including project sponsor, program manager, requirements lead, and solution owner. Michelina has built and managed distributed teams and worked on special assignment to help build a new team focused on enterprise analysis, Lean IT and Agile Transformation initiatives.

Michelina brings a wealth of experience, enthusiasm, leadership and project knowledge to each classroom event. She has been working with Global Knowledge for 3 years and has developed business analysis, agile and communication courses. Michelina has worked with Global Knowledge clients in various industries including healthcare, insurance, logistics, banking, manufacturing and consulting. 

​Agenda:
8:30 AM - Coffee and Registration
9:00 AM - Workshop
12:00 PM - Lunch (card will be provided for Longo’s Lunch bar on Bloor)
1:00 PM - Workshop
3:00 PM - Workshop Ends

Fees: (subject to HST)
Early bird pricing ends April 14, 2016
PMI-SOC Members (please login prior to registering) - $ 265.00 $205.50 
Non Members - $371.68 $311.68

PDU: 5.0 (Leadership)

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Cancellations must be received by 5:00 pm, 5 business days before the event and must be sent in writing by email to events@soc.pmi.on.ca. There will be a 20% administration fee charged for cancellations, subtracted from the refund. Cancellation/refund requests will not be accepted less than 5 business days before the event. However, substitutions are welcome. Please let us know by 12:00 noon the day before the event of the person you wish to substitute by emailingevents@soc.pmi.on.ca

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