Course description
This intensive course covers a set of practical tools and methods to work through complex decisions with clarity and confidence, resulting in improved outcomes.
The course has a running case study, which serves as a practical 'hand-rail' to guide students through the application of systems thinking methods and provides a 'tool-box' of approaches and methods that take a more holistic approach to problem structuring, requirements capture and definition; appreciating multiple viewpoints and addressing different perspectives.
Upcoming start dates
Suitability - Who should attend?
The course is aimed at:
- Systems Analysts and Engineers of all disciplines
- Managers/decision makers/policy makers
- Individuals who need critical thinking skills to achieve successful outcomes in a complex working environment.
Outcome / Qualification etc.
What you will learn
The course will equip students to see problems ‘as a whole’ and appreciate different viewpoints, aiding their ability to draw out the key factors of any problematic situation, the form and structure of systems and to represent the systems’ dynamics.
The course will develop the broad range of critical and reflective thinking skills to develop ways of dealing with multiple stakeholder perspectives, leverage points, new disciplines and to work through influence activities required to achieve desired outcomes. In particular, the appreciative inquiry-based approaches will help to question and challenge what appears to be a ‘given’ constraint or policy-based limitation, identifying and challenging any assumptions.
Training Course Content
Core content
Approaches covered include:
- Use of Rich Pictures
- Methods for Multi-perspective views
- System mapping
- Soft Systems methods
- Dependency Modelling
- Metaphors for organisation
- Methods for Assumption surfacing and checking
- Scenario Planning for plausible futures
- Systems diagnostics tools (e.g. Viable Systems Model)
- Systems Dynamics Influence and Causal Loop diagrams
Course delivery details
Course structure
Lectures and practical sessions throughout the five days on relevant case studies; in particular using students’ own problems on Day 3 of the course.
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Cranfield University
Cranfield is a specialist postgraduate university that is a global leader for education and transformational research in technology and management. We have many world-class, large-scale facilities, including our own global research airport, which offers a unique environment for transformational education...