Custom Workshops and Seminars

If you are interested in scheduling one of the following workshops or seminars for your group, please contact our staff at (312)362-8395, or email us at creativity_center@depaul.edu

Mastering Innovation Series

Innovation is the key to achieving and sustaining a competitive advantage in today's unpredictable business climate. In order to successfully drive innovation within a team or organization, you need creative problem-solving skills and a deep understanding of how to lead and manage sustainable change. The Mastering Innovation Seminar Series will help you sharpen your skills in problem solving, opportunity identification and management of the high-performance team and organization. Seminars may be taken individually or to earn a certificate you must complete all three.
The seminars are designed for managers, employees and entrepreneurs who desire to more creatively envision, strategize and manage for greater business success. The topics are appropriate for individuals who are interested in learning effective methods of creative problem solving, change management and contemporary innovative strategies.

The current days and times available for convenient program registration:

Creative Problem Solving: Identifying Business Challenges & Solutions

•10/16/2009, O'Hare
•11/6/2009, Loop
•5/7/2010, O'Hare
•6/4/2010, Loop

Leading Change: Innovative Approaches for Increasing Effectiveness in Your Organization

•10/23/2009, O'Hare
•11/20/2009, Loop
•5/21/2010, O'Hare
•6/18/2010, Loop

Managing Innovation

•10/30/2009, O'Hare
•11/13/2009, Loop
•5/14/2010, O'Hare
•6/11/2010, Loop

For more information and registration, please follow this link. You may also reach us by e-mail at creativity_center@depaul.edu or by phone at 312-362-8395.

Generating Creative Ideas for Your Business

This program introduces innovative idea generation tools that you can use to reach unexpected solutions. Most of the conventional methods you use to solve problems or respond to opportunities in your business are the same ones used by others in your industry and lead to the same old solutions. You will learn “trigger tools” to unlock your own creativity and those with whom you work by applying new methods to a real problem. Learn to avoid the five creativity mistakes that often prevent people from reaching truly innovative ideas and solutions.

Creating Strategic Change

This program gives you powerful skills to proactively plan for strategic changes in your business. Whether you are an entrepreneur or work for an organization, you will increasingly need more innovative ways of reading your market and industry to anticipate trends and changes. This workshop gives you cutting-edge creative tools to identify the direction in which your organization needs to move, and will help you align your organization with your new strategy. This program is a must for entrepreneurs, managers, or anyone who desires to more innovatively envision, communicate, and act for greater business success.

Creative Problem Solving

This workshop introduces CPS: Creative Problem-Solving, a multi-step approach for business innovation and performance. You will learn skills to help you approach problems and opportunities in your professional life more creatively and effectively. Learn the secrets of the most creative companies in America, beginning with how to assess your business environment to how to really find breakthrough ideas for your business. Find out where most people and groups get bogged down, and how you can create an action plan to tackle problems and embrace opportunities.

Principles of Team Collaboration

Learning how to collaborate effectively is the key to unlocking your team’s power to make real and sustained changes and develop innovative solutions. There are several building blocks and skills needed to create a collaborative team environment. The principles of creative collaboration will help you begin this transformational process with your team. Research has shown that many teams fail to reach their potential and even their desired objectives. Goals can be unclear, people are not committed to the vision of the team, leaders or members sometimes take the team in a direction that veers off the course. Breakthrough teams, on the other hand, possess a variety of characteristics, and this talk will introduce the foundational skills needed to create high-performing, powerful teams dedicated to fulfilling the vision of the organization. To become “breakthrough”, teams must share and exhibit a set of collaboration-enhancing values, norms, and behaviors—the mainstay of a team’s culture.

Creating a Motivating Work Environment

This program gives participants the skills to assess their present workplace environment, and tools to conduct a climate audit. Ten dimensions of work climate are introduced, and strategies are learned that will help participants build an environment that encourages high employee engagement, and draws out the innovative contributions of all members.