Complementary Skills Workshop: Reach your Goals

Systematic creativity and principles of agile work for academic and professional achievements

Intensive 2 day workshop
20.09.2018 -- 21.09.2018
9.00 am - 5.00 pm
MAINZ seminar room: Staudingerweg 9, room 03.122
Exercise based workshop

Systematic creativity describes the conscious process of creative thinking when trying to solve a problem or realize a given goal. Together with principles found in agile development, it can be a powerful tool to overcome obstacles on the way to your personal and professional success. The skills associated with this training can be applied alone or in a group setting, which also makes them highly relevant when working in a team.

What you will learn

  • Principles of systematic creativity
  • A process of systematic creative thinking
  • Tools to be used individually or in a team to analyse problems, find the right questions, generate and evaluate ideas and develop solutions
  • Principles of agile thinking and working
  • Simple tools that help organizing your work, so that found solutions can be implemented sucessfully

How you will be able to behave after the workshop

- You will abstain from blocking your own creativity with certain thoughts and beliefs
- You will communicate with others in ways that sustain and support creativity
- You will structure and phrase your own tasks in a way that makes sure you will follow up on them

What makes it important?
Coming up with original ideas and implementing working solutions to challenging problems is a key qualification of the modern world. It is not limited to creative areas or invention, but a skill required of every academic and every employee. The two subsets of skill are the creative part – how to tackle a problem and come up with ideas – and the follow-up: implantation. That is why principles, tools and processes that support these two skills are in high demand and have developed rapidly over the last two decades.

How you will be working during the Workshop - Workshop Framework

Throughout the workshop, professional input from the trainer will alternate with practical written exercises and group discussions of relevant issues. There will be plenty of room for your questions and you will be working on own real publishing projects.

Input from the trainer will usually be a combination of speech, presentation, flipchart and video. Most of the work sessions will take place in small groups, where each group will work on topics from participants, and each group member providing creative input and critical feedback.

Who should attend - Workshop Participants

This workshop is most useful for students who already have some writing/publication experience (in any language). This experience may cover abstracts for conferences, single-author or co-authored papers, progress reports for examination committees, proposals for theses/projects/grants, etc.

Participation is recommended if you often face “fuzzy” challenges or problems that you have to solve, be it in an academic or professional environment, and if you work individually or as part of a team.

Your trainer – Profile + Experiences

Daniel Barth majored in Chinese studies at the University of Munich and spent two years abroad in China. Through a one-year program at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich he received training in user centered innovation (Design Thinking) and entrepreneurship.

He co-founded the company creaffective GmbH in 2013 and works globally as an Innovation Coach, supporting international companies and educational institutions through consultation, facilitation and trainings. He is also experienced in facilitating self-organized teams using the methods Holacracy and Sociocracy 3.0. In addition, he was trained in non-violent communication and SCRUM.