Mastering Continuous Improvement teaches a powerful system to enable people to make good decisions, find the root cause to problems, prevent problems, and create innovative improvements with effectiveness and accuracy. The skills taught in the workshop will help a leader become the master of their environment, whether it’s at work or at home. Participants will also learn how to lead business meetings that are centered on solving problems, making decisions, and preventive action. People will receive instruction on how to mentor others in this system and how to use state-of-the-art e-Learning for review of the system and for exposing others to it. You will receive a certificate from the American Academy of Project Management® verifying that you are a Master of Continuous Improvement and that you are qualified to mentor others in your organization in this system.

Decisions involve choosing between alternatives. Most people find decisions and recommendations to be the most challenging part of their jobs — fraught with emotion, politics, incomplete information, and risk of failure. Too often, decisions are made without adequate regard to what’s really important, or fail to take varying needs and perspectives into account.
  Alamo’s Decision Making provides process managers with a system for clarifying decision criteria and analyzing alternatives — leading to better, more objective and balanced choices. The system helps individuals/teams identify and consider all the important factors in the success of a decision. Risks are confronted proactively, so they can be avoided or managed. Missing information can be identified; different people and opinions can be incorporated into the decision analysis.
  Understanding and using Decision Making, participants gain the confidence that their decisions best meet the requirements of the situation, customers, and organization.
  After learning the Decision Making process and completing a case study, participants will be able to apply the skills learned to real applications they’ve brought to the workshop.

Continuous Improvement: Problem Prevention
Effective problem prevention is critical to improved decision making and problem solving. Even the best decision, poorly implemented, can be a failure. Just having a list of steps or a plan diagram won’t guard against the changes and difficulties that can derail a project or plan.
  Problem Prevention teaches participants to analyze the implementation of decisions and solutions to ensure they are successfully carried out. The process is based on a series of critical questions that help highlight potential hazards in a decision/plan — or even a day-to-day activity — and to put measures in place to avoid or mitigate the problems. Problem Prevention also deals with the “up-side,” providing a method to identify and capitalize on the often overlooked opportunities in a project or plan.
  The Problem Prevention process focuses on the future, helping individuals or teams ensure that their efforts are ultimately successful through real proactive thinking and taking the right preventive action.
  After learning the Problem Prevention process and completing an activity, participants will be able to apply the skills learned to real applications they’ve brought to the workshop.

The Innovation section concentrates on three fundamental goals to enhance the frequency and success of innovative efforts:

1. To overcome the inertia and uncertainty that act as barriers to innovative thinking
2. To provide a process to guide and manage the development and implementation of innovative solutions
3. To teach techniques and skills to improve the quantity and quality of innovative ideas/projects

The processes and skills taught in Innovation will give participants a clear path to take in every situation that calls for innovative thought.

Concepts and Skills Taught in the Innovation Section:

• Where and when Innovation is called for — the right tool for the right need
• Where new ideas come from
• The Innovation process
• How to get an organization to be innovative
• Navigating through the corporate swamp
• Presenting new ideas
• The latest principles of innovation used in some of the world's most successful
  innovative organizations

Applying skills learned in the classroom to real, on-the-job problems can sometimes seem like a quantum leap. Most organizations have learned through hard experience that getting new knowledge and techniques to be used requires support and follow-up.
  The Process Advisor section is designed to maximize the value of training by helping the participants become effective process advisors and process coaches so the organization can gain from the training the participants received. This section focuses on the powerful skills already learned and teaches the participants how to consult, explain, and coach others in the use of the Continuous Improvement skills.

Participants will be able to:

• Explain the purpose, rationale, and logic of each of the Continuous Improvement skills
• Explain how each Continuous Improvement skill works
• Explain the function and role of a process advisor
• Use tested leadership skills to help Continuous Improvement be more effective
• Understand where and how to use each Continuous Improvement skill
• Introduction to Continuous Improvement eLearning for rapid deployment of these skills