Creative Problem Solving Institute 2025

If you are new to CPSI, Foundations of Creative Problem Solving is your fast track to a deliberate creativity process for solving problems and capitalizing on opportunities. You’ll learn the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Process, the research-based gold standard of creativity methods, and be exposed to the FourSight framework, which can help you understand how you and your teammates approach challenges.

In an incredibly engaging format, your team of experienced facilitators will use hands-on activities, real-world examples, and a variety of divergent and convergent thinking tools to give you the skills you need to advance your personal and professional goals.

Foundations of Creative Problem Solving is the first of four skills-building courses in Creative Problem Solving. After completing all four CPS courses, you will deepen your ability to facilitate and train others in the CPS process, while also becoming eligible to be considered to lead CPS programs at future CPSIs!

In this course, you will:
• Recognize and overcome blocks to creativity.
• Identify attitudes and behaviors conducive to creative thinking.
• Apply core concepts of creative thinking.
• Use a variety of divergent and convergent thinking tools.
• Apply the CPS method to many simulated or real situations.
• Consciously be creative when facing problems and opportunities.

NOTE: You must attend your Core CPS Course all four mornings of the conference in order to complete this program. This core track is limited to 45 attendees. You must select Foundations of CPS when registering for CPSI to attend this track (selecting it here in Sched does not qualify as reserved spot).

*PREREQUISITE: Level 1: CPS Foundations at previous CPSI or FLCC. If you did not take Level 1 but have a solid understanding of the Osborne-Parnes Creative Problem Solving process, you must connect with CPSI Program Staff before being enrolled.

Level 2: Creative Problem Solving Tools is a natural stepping stone if you have previously taken Level 1: Foundations of CPS. This fast-paced course allows beginner to intermediate facilitators to go deeper into the CPS process, adding more facilitation tools to your repertoire.

You will gain a clear understanding of which tools to use at each stage of the CPS process, as well as how to modify them to fit your session objectives or add a bit of creative flair. You will have time to practice tools to gain real mastery of them. You will also learn a variety of energizers and fun grouping games to keep your sessions engaging and interactive. Learn through small- and large-group work, including round-robin sharing and show-and-tell exercises.

In this course, you will:

• Explore a variety of divergent and convergent tools for individual and group problem solving.
• Learn how and where to apply different tools within the CPS process.
• Practice facilitating tools.
• Discover how to use tools when you or your team are unable to progress or working in areas of low preference.

NOTE: You must attend your Core CPS Course all four mornings of the conference to complete this program and qualify for the credential assessment for CPS Level 2.
This core track is limited to 25 attendees. You must select Tools when registering for CPSI to attend this track (selecting it here in Sched does not qualify as reserved spot).

*PREREQUISITE: Level 1: Foundations of CPS and Level 2: Creative Problem Solving Tools at previous CPSI or FLCC. If you did not take Level 1 or 2 at CPSI/FLCC but have a solid understanding of the Osborne-Parnes Creative Problem Solving process and have experience with CPS tools, you must connect with CPSI Program Staff before being enrolled.

Level 3: Facilitating CPS
Facilitation skills are central to the effective use of CPS, whether in formal meetings or informal brainstorming sessions. This course is designed for those who already know the CPS process in theory and are ready to put it into action as a facilitator. This course uses peer-group practices to prepare participants for working with actual clients. Characteristics of successful facilitation will be identified and practiced, and you will develop an awareness of your own strengths and areas for development. In this course, you will:

•Review and internalize the CPS process through the lens of the facilitator.
•Experience CPS from several points of view – as a facilitator, as the problem-owner, and as part of the resource group.
•Understand how to facilitate each step of the CPS process.
•Receive general facilitation tips that enhance any meeting.
•Receive individual and group feedback on facilitation skills.
•Explore and develop your facilitation style.

*PREREQUISITE: Level 1: Foundations of CPS at previous CPSI or FLCC. If you did not take Level 1 at CPSI or FLCC but have a solid understanding of the Osborne-Parnes Creative Problem Solving process, you must connect with CPSI Program Staff before being enrolled. PREFERRED: Completion of Level 2: Creative Problem Solving Tools and Level 3: Facilitating CPS. Registrants should have a solid understanding of CPS tools and facilitation skills.


This workshop series is designed for experienced Creative Problem Solving (CPS) practitioners seeking deeper insights into advanced methodologies, emerging research, and cutting-edge applications. Each session will engage participants in thought-provoking discussions, hands-on exercises, and collaborative problem-solving to refine their expertise and expand their strategic toolkit. Information on specific topic areas to come.

Instructors: Dr. Gerard Puccio, Chair & Distinguished Professor, Center for Applied Imagination, Buffalo State University; Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers, Associate Professor, Center for Applied Imagination, Buffalo State University; Dr. Roger Firestien, Associate Professor Emeritus, Center for Applied Imagination at Buffalo State University, President of Innovation Resources, Inc.; additional instructor TBD

In YouthWise, kids will explore Creative Problem Solving through fun, hands-on activities, "field trips," and games. They will put their new and enhanced skills to work as a team, by creating and presenting a solution to a unique challenge.

This Immersion will be four experiences in one! Each day will focus on a different topic, yet they’re all connected by developing the creative person, the creative process, the creative culture, and a creative product. Creativity thrives with a multidimensional approach. This Immersion experience will explore various facets leading to enhanced creativity.

It has been said that everyone has a book inside them. This workshop helps prospective book authors take the first steps toward getting that book OUTSIDE. This workshop is for anyone who has wanted to write a book, but hasn't been able to get it done, or even get it started; anyone who feels that they need to write a book, for career or personal reasons; and anyone who just wants to know what it takes to get a book written and published. The lessons here apply to any type of book-length manuscript: novel, memoir, poetry or essay collection, business or self-help book.

Three Takeaways:
1. Explore WHY you might want to write a book, and WHY you have been finding it
difficult to get it started or get it done.
2. Identify WHAT books you should write and who it’s for.
3. Learn HOW to actually get the book written, and HOW you might get it published.

In this dynamic series, we will explore the integration of Creative Problem Solving (CPS) with other problem solving approaches such as design thinking and agile to enhance innovation. Participants will explore how CPS underpins these processes, and how to view the collaborative process through a series of diagnostic filters. The session challenges the myth of linear workflows, emphasizing the iterative and turbulent nature of innovation. Through engaging activities and reflective exercises, attendees will identify personal strengths and areas for growth in their collaboration approach that align with the non-linear demands of creative leadership.

Participants will:

• Identify personal strengths and areas for growth in your collaboration approach that align with the non-linear demands of creative leadership
• Visualize where you and your team spend the most time in collaboration
• Learn how to map your team’s project and use diagnostic filters to identify blind spots and ways to enhance innovation

Why is Adult Play so important? How we play is directly linked to how we learn, think, work, feel, perform, and interact with others. What you learn in play you remember for life!

This immersion program includes everything you need for your one-stop facilitator play chest! We have strategically blended Jump into LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methods, Playsonality™ Assessment, What the Duck, and LSP 3D Diagnostic Cards into one complete 14-hour program:
Day One: The Power of Play & LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methods
Day Two: Playsonality™ Assessment
Day Three: Now What the Duck Activities
Day Four: 3D Diagnostic Cards and

If you are looking for a new way to engage with your team and you want to add more fun to your work or workplace culture, this session is designed for you. This is a facilitated thinking & communications technique. Our Playology program draws on extensive research from the field of business, organization development, psychology, and learning. Using hand-brain knowledge, we will share the processes that help individuals and teams surface information, explore ideas, create better options, develop deeper knowledge, and identify solutions faster with 100% engagement. And yes, we have corporate, community, and education examples with case studies.

You will walk away with new insights about the power of play and how we all use play daily, and multiple new tools that you can use immediately to improve individual and team performance, while adding more play to corporate culture.

Are you looking for a session which will:
1. Unpack the value of play at work and discover the ROI of play
2. Access the Playsonality© app to decode your facilitator play style
3. Conduct a deep dive into how play formulates our identity
4. Discover new ways to stimulate powerful conversations
5. Supplement your creative program with engaging activities that people will remember
6. Gain new tools and techniques for your facilitator’s play chest
7. Explore how play paves the way to the flow zone where we do our best thinking

Learning Objectives:
-Add LEGO® bricks and directives to your workshops to improve engagement;
-Apply the five-step processes to improve communication;
-Identify when PLAY can be most useful;
-Supplement your creative program with the playstyles assessments;
-Avoid conversational roundabouts;
-Use flow theory and underlying neuroscience principles that make this so powerful and memorable.
-Facilitate and explore ideas on a deeper level using a play chest of new tools.

Let’s get ready to PLAY!

All Aboard! Join us for a dynamic journey in our fun, hands-on facilitation session that will supercharge your skills and bring your sessions to life! Whether you’re teaching a class, leading a board meeting, guiding a strategic planning session, or simply communicating with your team, this highly interactive session will give you the tools, tips, and techniques you need to keep everyone engaged and energized. Along the way, we’ll make stops at practical exercises, engaging discussions, and real-world scenarios with real-time feedback, all designed to make facilitation feel less like a boring, highways-only road trip and more like an exciting, collaborative adventure. By the end of our journey, you’ll be ready to lead with confidence, spark creativity, and make every session a memorable experience!

Founder of InsideOut Creativity, Katie Ravich, and Polarity Thinking™ expert, Liz Monroe-Cook, introduce you to the powerful, creative process of working with Polarities specifically in Educational settings.

Polarities can be leveraged in your everyday life and also within your classrooms, and within your teams. Understanding and integrating Polarity Thinking™ as a creative process has positive impacts across the whole learning ecosystem.

We deep-dive into how this can happen, exploring this creative process using common Polarities educators are working within every day, through collaborative discussion and hands-on processes:

• Mapping interdependent relationships using affective creative thinking skills and heightening emotional intelligence.
• Exploring the partnership of Polarity Thinking™ and Creative Problem-Solving (CPS).
• Raising curiosity and thinking flexibly about the concept of ‘blameless discernment’ and becoming unconsciously competent in this shared creative practice.

If you are a curious-minded teacher or leader in schools, universities, or community colleges, this workshop will ignite both thinking and action, offering a fresh perspective on familiar challenges. We invite you to be both Challenged (and) Supported as you shift your thinking to transform your practice.

How often do we have the chance to reflect on our lives? On what we have accomplished, what is important, and what may seem inconsequential. This workshop will give you the opportunity to pause for a few minutes and reconsider your journey so far. You'll be able to create a book using practical, seamless binding techniques (using only paper folds). This exercise will allow you to write, draw, and also bring printed photographs to include in your book. It provides you with the opportunity to share these moments in the workshop and later with others.

This workshop equips participants with tools and strategies to effectively navigate group dynamics in high-pressure or emotionally charged situations. Through interactive activities and case studies, participants will explore techniques for building trust, fostering psychological safety, and addressing conflict with empathy and clarity. Whether leading community dialogues, team meetings, or restorative circles, this session will provide practical insights to help you hold space for meaningful collaboration and progress.

Dr. Kimberly Macuare

In this session, held at a local art museum (on or off campus), participants will engage in a series of hands-on contemplation activities designed to focus attention, deepen engagement, and enhance understanding. Using different modalities—writing, drawing, looking—you will explore how contemplative practices help build sustained attention skills and inspire inquiry and insight, revealing new ways of knowing. In addition to helping viewers develop deeper reflective practices around art viewing, participants will also consider how these activities could be used as part of their general facilitation toolbox.

Explore how neuroscience fuels creativity in this engaging, interactive workshop. You’ll uncover how key brain networks drive creative thinking and practice science-backed techniques like brainstorming with constraints and collaborative idea mapping to tackle challenges. Leave with actionable tools to spark innovation individually and within your teams.

Anthony Billoni

Most people are looking for an edge in their decision-making. We spend time clarifying the challenges in our workplace and in our lives, developing ideas, and then planning for action only to find ourselves stalled or back at square one just a bit frustrated. Wouldn’t it be great if there existed a resource that would yield more novel and useful ideas than you could have ever imagined? Creativity expert and arts professional Anthony Billoni developed and tested a process that combines using a setting filled with original art with CPS tools that will guide you toward this treasure trove of new and useful ideas. By the end of the session you will have experienced art like never before.

Effective collaboration requires more than understanding tasks; it demands a deep awareness of team dynamics, communication preferences, and the shared processes that drive results. This interactive workshop introduces the art and science of Play Facilitation, equipping you to use tabletop games as part of engaging and meaningful team experiences that transform team learning and culture-building. Through hands-on play and guided reflection, you’ll discover how to leverage game mechanics to address common team dynamics, such as:

Building trust and a shared team identity.
Improving communication and collaboration.
Navigating difficult conversations about processes and expectations.

Avoid the pitfalls of “awkward, forced fun” and instead create environments that spark self-awareness, foster connection, and drive motivation. Whether you’re a leader, facilitator, or team coach, this session will provide you with practical tools and fresh ideas to expand your team’s capacity—and have fun while doing it!

Struggling to make your communications stand out? This session will help you uncover your brand's DNA and role in people’s lives, enabling you to express it in more extraordinary ways. Using proven brand archetyping tools, you'll leave with a unique brand personality and story to differentiate your future communications, whether you’re a solo-preneur, work inside of an organization, or want help defining your own personal brand.

Whether you are leading a team or facilitating a group, how you behave creates a working climate. The question is, are you creating the right kind of climate, one that helps those you lead engage, solve problems creatively, and use their collective talent to better the team or company? During this session you will discover how the climate you create can turn your efforts toward innovation or stagnation; you will see how developing a creative climate leads to measurable business results; you will learn about nine dimensions of climate; and walk away with tools to help build climate and stretch groups to new levels of innovation and change.

Eduardo Kastika
Sofia Kastika

Techniques for generation and selection of ideas, explained in a simple way and combined with artificial intelligence (mind mapping, analogies, SCAMPER, and lateral thinking). We are going to explain how to apply these tools using a concrete example: Argentine “alfajores”. Everything is going to be shown with real-life examples, real and not widely known.