Creating a Problem Solving Culture

An environment where improvement happens as part of daily work

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• Course Description

• Leaning Objectives

• Workshop Agenda

• Who Should Attend

• Hotel Accommodations

• Registration Information

• Brochure coming...

Failure to establish a problem solving culture accounts for one-half of all unsuccessful, large-scale, organizational change efforts. Learn what it takes to build and sustain a culture of problem-solvers.

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Course Description

Today, more and more companies are built on the principles and methodologies of operational excellence and strategic innovation. Having the capabilities to continually improve existing forms of value while refreshing, navigating, and introducing new forms of value is paramount to drive desired revenue stability and growth.

At the top of today’s business agenda is building an organization that embraces continuous improvement, innovation, and the organizational member’s shared resolve to improve and a shared belief in their collective capability to do so. Central to these values is creating a problem solving culture. A problem solving culture refers to an employee community where improvement is part of daily work, improvements can seamlessly be implemented in processes improving their value-add component to the end customer, and all improvements can systemically be linked to the company’s strategic objectives.

The pathway for creating a problem solving culture is simple: consistent leadership messages and actions, information sharing through social interaction, scheduled PDCA education, and celebration. Indeed, failure to establish a problem solving culture accounts for one-half of all unsuccessful, large-scale, organizational change efforts.

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Learning Objectives

In this one and a half day session we will provide you with a well-rounded educational experience. This accelerated learning curriculum is steeped with meaningful take-it-home material that has become a signature of Productivity Inc. and will help you to:

• ensure organizational readiness for change
• determine the disciplines necessary to implement and sustain a company-wide improvement effort
• connect strategy with improvement in the work place
• position the principles necessary for proactive project management
• create a culture where daily improvement and innovation – introducing new value to the market – happen repeatedly

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Workshop Agenda

Tuesday 8:00 - 5:00
Wednesday 8:00 - 1:00

• Context and Strategy open the session allowing for a round-table discussion where you can share current state issues and opportunities. Here we put the terms creating, culture, and problem in needed perspective and discuss a range of social and technical considerations that have an impact on creating or re-building a culture.


• Pull and Organizational Readiness are front and center when it comes to stacking-the-deck in your favor. Here we emphasize the importance of establishing organizational readiness for change and the various strategies for creating it. Unlike individual readiness for change, creating a problem solving culture entails a collective behavior change as well as changes in the infra-structure that support it.


• Strategy Planning and Policy Deployment are the instruments we’ll use to demonstrate a systemic approach to get everyone involved in a company-wide value creation process. Guided by a Business Case Study you will learn how to align company objectives and strategic initiatives with work place problem solving activities and daily work. Here, too, we’ll snapshot the Lean enterprise PDCA toolkit and learn how these foundational improvement processes directly support a problem solving culture.


• Project Management is a central theme in creating a problem solving culture. It allows us to effectively identify, prioritize, open, execute, and close down projects, and to do so fostering collaboration with employees at all levels. Project management is a disciplined process that provides the opportunity to put ideas into practice. This discussion will reveal that the real payoff in establishing a problem solving culture comes when the organization as a whole shifts to a test-and-learn mind-set guided by well-managed project management principles.


• Sustaining the Problem Solving Culture is a testament of leadership. We’ll learn that leadership standard work is instrumental in establishing the discipline necessary to make problem-solving part of daily work. Leadership standard work is not assessments and audits, it’s all about teaching and learning. We’ll look at some powerful examples of leadership standard work in action, and the top ten questions you should ask when walking-the-work place.


• Take-it-Home is a classroom exercise designed to allow you an opportunity to exchange ideas and then, individually, render a next step action plan specific to your company’s current state. You will answer the question…“given my current state, what are the circumstances likely to generate a shared sense of readiness to the creation of a problem solving culture?”

Sustaining a problem-solving culture requires continual commitment from employees at all levels and at times will be a difficult process. But, the powerful benefits achieved from a PDCA employee community will allow your organization to be successful even in today’s volatile economic climate.

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Who should attend?

Anyone responsible for building and maintaining a continuous improvement program and culture in their organization.

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Hotel Accommodations

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Registration Information

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