Creative Strategic IT Leadership

Overview:

Introduction:

This program is designed to provide IT leaders and professionals with a set of transformational tools and techniques to help them maximize their own and their team’s creative potential. The starting point for this conference is self-discovery; participants will work on the inside first and then focus outwards onto the world of business

Conference Objectives:

At the end of this conference the participants will be able to:

• Set out their leadership brand
• Demonstrate innovative methods for harnessing others’ creative potential
• Articulate a vision using multiple sensory representations
• Communicate their vision in refreshing and engaging ways
• Identify critical components of a strategically-aligned IT department
• Apply value and performance measurement techniques
• Develop meaningful recruitment and retention policies
• Evaluate technology solutions, vendor selection, and outsourcing

Targeted Audience:

• IT Team Leaders
• IT Managers
• IT Professionals from both Technical and Management Backgrounds
• IT Operations Staff,
• Networks/Systems and IT Projects staff
• Technical Professionals

Conference Outlines:

Unit 1: Creative Problem-Solving:

• Leadership Reality Assessment
• Leadership VS Management
• Understanding Our Brain Function
• Myths of Creativity
• The limitations of the rational
• Divergent approaches to problem-solving
• Letting go of logic
• Analogous thinking modes
• Convergent and divergent modes

Unit 2: Overcoming Personal Blockers to Creativity:

• Sigmoid Curve
• Lifecycle Model
• Continuous Improvement
• Breakthrough step change
• Self-awareness and the nature of the ego
• Personal goal alignment
• Adaption and innovation: personal preferences for creating meaning
• Exploring attitudes to risk
• Left- and right-brain thinking

Unit 3: Developing Vision Creatively:

• Six thinking hats
• Using differing thinking styles
• JoHari’s window
• The business plan process & creating a vision
• Harnessing the power of the team
• Organizational culture and its influence on innovation
• Letting go of the ego
• Working with different creative preferences

Unit 4: Communicating the Vision Creatively:

• The 7 Step Creative Process
• Models of communication
• Viral visioning
• Authenticity and trust
• Creativity tools, techniques & strategy
• Letting go of the vision
• Leading without directing
• Possible leadership beliefs

Unit 5: From Ideas to Action: Creativity and Change:

• Motivation
• Hierarchy of Needs
• Overcoming organizational barriers to creativity and change
• Nurturing a learning environment
• Is Money a motivator?
• Personality Profiling
• Building a creative consensus
• Engaging stakeholders creatively
• Influencing and motivating through change