Stimulating Engineers' Creativity

Each professional engineering regulatory board across Canada has different CPD requirements, and some boards require strictly technical CPD courses related to your discipline. Courses in the area of Business Skills, Firm Management, or Personal Development may not qualify. Check your regulator's criteria to confirm the courses you need to fulfill your provincial requirements.

In Stimulating Engineers' Creativity, you'll learn ...

• Techniques to develop and foster creative energies and focus imagination to achieve innovative results
• Time-tested approaches to finding novel solutions or helping with the technical investigations that breed different thinking
• Methods to achieve a more creative work environment
• Established techniques for delivering out-of-the box technical solutions

Overview

Many people understand the terms “engineering” and “creativity” as a dichotomy in spite of the fact that we are all surrounded by outstanding examples of engineering creativity. Creative geniuses like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and many others are examples of creative minds who dared to challenge their contemporaneous constraints.

While Engineering training curriculum is often loaded with basic technical skills that provide students with the tools needed to successfully solve a set of pre-determined or already defined problems, accomplished engineers confirm that the set of technical skills learned during the school years, while very important, is not sufficient to ensure a successful engineering career. Other extra-curricular skills are also needed, such as presentation skills, communication skills, selling skills, etc. Among those, technical creativity should be given a priority.

This course introduces a few techniques that allow individuals with a technical background to develop and foster their creative energies and to focus their imagination to achieve innovative results. The creative process is approached from a number of directions, each being supported by time-tested techniques for finding novel solutions or helping with the technical investigations that breed different thinking (Context Map, Triz, Six Thinking Hats, Brainstorming, Reverse Planning, Grid methods, etc.).

Creativity can rarely be imposed, mandated or demanded, but it can always be facilitated, stimulated and encouraged. The material will focus on ways to achieve a more creative work environment and will provide a few established methods that can deliver out-of-the box technical solutions. Illustrative examples on how to apply those techniques are also provided. Properly applying those methods can only lead to increased inventiveness, better products and market differentiation, and finally more highly satisfied customers.

This course will help junior and senior Engineers, Engineering Managers, Project Managers and any other technical personnel to increase their creative contribution to the projects with out-of-the box, yet practically feasible solutions.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Understanding the stages of creativity and of how the solution finding processes typically develops
• Familiarization with the particularities of a working environment that is conducive to creativity and stimulates technical imagination
• The Context Map method: how to use it to understand the constraints of the problem at hand
• The Problem Statement method: how to use it to accurately define a technical problem
• Brainstorming: how experts in various disciplines can generate innovative solutions
• The TRIZ method of inventive problem solving: what it is and how to use it
• The How-How diagram: how to guide the Analyst on the solution finding path
• The Pugh methods (Grid methods) of evaluating candidate solutions and selecting the best one
• The Kipling method: how to find the best solution from a pool of candidate solutions
• Six Thinking Hats technique: how to evaluate solutions from various perspectives and propose alternatives
• The Head, Heart and Hands method: ways to get buy-in and implement a novel solution
• Understanding the basics of the Reverse Planning method for finding a novel solution
• Familiarity with the Force Field Analysis method to evaluate unclear needs and specifications, fuzzy states of things and situations lacking complete information

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 20 questions. CPD credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.