C277/08
20 October 2008
Curtin University of Technology’s newly launched Centre for Innovation in Decision Quality (CIDQ) will provide expertise and training in innovative thinking and decision quality to meet the spiralling needs of the business sector.
Recognising the growing complexity of the marketplace, increased executive accountability and the demands of sound corporate governance, the CIDQ, which is part of Curtin’s Graduate School of Business, combines research and practice with an ultimate focus on enhanced decision quality.
Dr Margot Wood, who co-directs the CIDQ with Associate Professor Des Klass, said poor decision making and inadequate decision processes incur very real costs to an organisation.
“The CIDQ is addressing these issues by bringing together a diverse team with significant senior management expertise and a strong research base,” Dr Wood said.
“The Centre focuses on maximising decision quality and identifying and managing innovation opportunities within organisations. Working closely with the organisation we then develop practical and creative approaches designed to address the challenges or opportunities they face.
“We look to develop high performance cultures and inspire leaders to think differently.”
The CIDQ has provided support to a broad range of organisations in different industries. The Centre’s current research program includes examining decision quality in the mining and resource related sector across Australia and Southeast Asia, strategic decision making in the public sector and a three stage innovation study focusing on professional services.
The success of CIDQ’s innovative approach was apparent following the ‘Thinking Differently – Our Journey Continues’ retreat which was organised for the Perth office of national and international law firm, Minter Ellison and facilitated by Dr Margot Wood and Dianna Vitasovic.
Dr Wood said the Retreat was designed to not only engage participants, but also provided a set of supporting tools and techniques for people to draw upon and an immediate opportunity to begin ‘thinking differently.’
“The journey started when Minter Ellison began to explore opportunities for taking their already successful practice to the next level,” Dr Wood said.
“The overall project was a collaborative exercise. It involved co-creation of internal processes, development of support systems, tools and processes, an organisation-wide experiential retreat and development of follow-up
systems to encourage the generation of ideas.”
John Poulsen, Managing Partner for Minter Ellison Perth commented on the experience of working with the CIDQ team.
“I found working with Margot and Dianna from CIDQ to be a fantastic and invigorating experience. They challenged me and my management team each step of the way to really think about our objectives for the retreat and how best to achieve those objectives.
“Margot’s and Dianna’s organisational skills are second to none and the feedback from our staff on the retreat was overwhelmingly positive.”
To find out more information about Curtin’s Centre for Innovation in Decision Quality visit: http://www.cbs.curtin.edu.au/business/professional-services .
Contacts: Dr Margot Wood; Centre for Innovation in Decision Quality; Curtin; 08 9266 3564; Margot.Wood@curtin.edu.au or Monique Billstein; Public Relations; Curtin; 08 9266 3353; 0401 103 018; M.Billstein@curtin.edu.au
Modified: 20 October 2008
