Course

Certificate in Innovation & Critical Thinking

Course Availability:

View upcoming dates for this course.

On-Demand
ONLINE: Certificate in Innovation and Critical Thinking - Member Rate $224.00
ONLINE: Certificate in Innovation and Critical Thinking - Non Member Rate $274.00
Instructor: Online Learning
Level: Advanced Practitioner
On Demand
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Description

Because organizations must innovate to stay alive in today's highly competitive marketplace, organizations need employees who can channel their creativity and innovation toward organizational challenges and goals.

This suite of courses will first help you become re-acquainted with your own stores of creativity and innovation. Next, you are given a set of tools that allow you to leverage your creativity to identify and solve organizational problems. One activity asks you how you might look at a problem from a different angle to produce a more creative result; others walk you through the process of using analogies or replacement techniques to invent creative solutions to problems.

Each 3 to 5 hour, self-paced course offers an assortment of interactive exercises, videos, selected readings, case studies, and self-assessments that will engage you and help you apply your newly discovered creativity in the workplace. 

Objectives

  • See objectives for each individual course below
  • Download a printable certificate of completion for this online course suite 

Intended Audience

This course is targeted to individuals who meet or exceed the following professional demographics: 

  • Mid-level public procurement and central warehouse professionals who serve as senior buyers, managers, directors, or equivalent functions within their respective entities.  
     
  • Non-procurement managers and supervisors who either provide procurement functions that support entity programs under delegated authority, or who already have a good understanding of basic procurement principles but wish to get more in-depth, hands-on training.  
     
  • Professionals who are employed by local governing entities and special authorities (such as K-12 and higher education, publicly owned utilities, transportation providers, and other publicly funded or created entities) who either serve within or manage the procurement function. 
     
  • Supplier managers and supervisors seeking to understand the public procurement function from a more in-depth holistic level, including the policies, standards, and procedures by which public entities must function. 

 

Delivery Formats Available

On-Demand

Contact Hours

22

CEUs

2.2

Level

Advanced

Designed for public procurement professionals who have at least five years’ experience.

120 Days
Access Period

Courses included in this Suite


 

Courses included in this Suite

  • Creativity in Teams and Organizations

    This course looks at spurring creativity and innovation in teams and organizations. Drawing on the latest academic thinking, it outlines the key factors for creative teams.
    Further, the course focuses on tools and techniques designed to yield more productive thinking in collective settings. Participants learn about a number of targeted tools (including brainstorming, Discussion 66, Provocation, and others) to generate fresh thinking in smaller group settings and in their organizations.

    After completing this course, the student should be able to:

    • Explain the connection between creativity and innovation
    • Outline the five factors for creative teams
    • Use team creative tools such as brainstorming, Discussion 66, anonymous idea generation, and visioning
    • Explain the importance of diversity in team creativity
    • Describe techniques for prototyping new ideas
    • Explain how to overcome creative barriers for teams and organizations
    • Describe ways to make teams and organizations more open to creativity and innovation
  • Introduction to Critical Thinking

    This course is an introduction to the importance of critical thinking in the business world. Critical thinking is an intellectual model for reasoning through issues to reach well-founded conclusions about them. Asking questions is at the heart of critical thinking.

    This program is designed to help learners define and identify critical thinking and reasoning skills and develop those skills.

    After completing this course, the student should be able to:

    • Define critical thinking, reasoning, and logic
    • Ask appropriate questions for critical thinking
    • Understand the process of systemic problem-solving
    • Identify and overcome barriers to critical thinking
    • Articulate common reasoning fallacies
    • Understand critical thinking as it pertains to the workplace
  • Innovation in Teams and Organizations

    This course looks at innovation in corporations and the public sector. It reviews the latest academic thinking on innovation, including Clay Christensen's seminal thinking on disruptive technology and the proper response.

    Further, it explores some of the internal responses to the need for creativity, including idea champions, idea incubators, new venture teams and skunk works, and the process of moving from innovation to commercialization.

    Finally, the course focuses on some of the more successful corporate innovators as a way of illustrating the principles of effective innovation in large organizations, and also explores the role of innovation in the public sector.

    After completing this course, the student should be able to:

    • Outline the key factors for an innovative organization
    • Discuss the barriers to innovation
    • Explain the differences between incremental, semi-radical, and radical innovation
    • Describe internal innovation tools such as idea champions, idea incubators, new venture teams and skunk works
    • Explain the process of moving from idea to commercialization
    • Discuss the issues surrounding innovation in the public sector
  • Personal Creativity

    This course addresses Personal Creativity. Through tools and exercises drawn from Adrian Brown's book, Creativity & Innovation, it seeks to help unlock the creativity within individuals.

    By stimulating creativity through various techniques (mind-mapping, DO-IT, SCAMPER, right and left brain thinking) participants learn to tap into their personal creativity and apply it to organizational challenges.

    After completing this course, the student should be able to:

    • Describe the basis of personal creativity
    • Explain the uses of creative tools
    • Distinguish between vertical and lateral thinking
    • Employ creative tools like SCAMPER, random input, mind mapping, and DO IT
    • Describe the key characteristics of personal creativity
    • Assess the issues surrounding measuring creativity 

Available in the following delivery format

  On-Demand

This format is 100% self-paced and designed for those who want complete control of their schedule and learning timelines. 

Completion Requirements

In order to successfully complete, learners must:

  • Complete all course modules.
  • Complete the post-course evaluation survey available in Aspire.
  • Students must complete the course series within 120 days to receive credit.