TLI Short Courses

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

In the “new business normal” where both the external environment and employee expectations are very dynamic, leading progress requires a new mindset, toolset, and skillset. In this workshop, we’ll explore the changing context of leadership, discuss the role, mindset and differentiating capabilities of great innovation leaders, and review a variety of leadership practices that can help you focus, align and engage your teams to accelerate progress. Most importantly, we’ll spend time throughout the day in small group application discussions where you will be able to translate key insights into focused actions or practices to enhance your personal leadership effectiveness and accelerate progress in your current role.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

Innovation is the primary driver of economic value and growth in our world. Fortunately, innovation is not just a matter of luck, but as Peter Drucker said, "It is a discipline, capable of being learned, capable of being practiced." This day will focus on how leaders create the conditions for innovation and practical tools to help foster growth. We will do this through classroom and breakout discussions, and cover some short readings completed in advance.

Instructor: Mr. Paul Hansen

Typical Length: 8 hours

Marketing focus on new product development to enhance business growth. Includes the impact of implementing a marketing focus, creating and sustaining product value, enhancing new product success and managing a product portfolio.

Instructor: Mr. Paul Hansen

Typical Length: 8 hours

Identify and develop new business opportunities within an existing corporation. Focus on the Process, Tools, Structure & Leadership to drive breakthrough growth. Explore ways to make an established corporation “entrepreneurial” and market new technologies both within and outside a corporation. Providing leaders with the concepts and tools to dramatically enhance the effectiveness of their efforts to create new, “break-thru” growth opportunities in new ventures or within established firms.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 2-8 hours

For better or worse, we spend a significant amount of our professional time collaborating in teams of many types from the short-term project or process improvement teams to ongoing product development or departmental teams. All too often we default into a set of norms and practices that make these teams' experiences frustrating and less productive than we would like. In this workshop, we will explore the inherent challenges and opportunities of intrepreneurship — innovation within established firms — and discuss a variety of tools and practices that will help you set innovation teams and networks up for greater success by design. 

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 4 hours

When leading or implementing change initiatives, we tend to rely on project management tools and methods to help us optimize the process and systems aspects of the initiative. While good project management is absolutely necessary, it is not sufficient to ensure successful implementation AND adoption of the change. We also need to become effective change leaders who attend to and manage the people and cultural aspects of the project. In this workshop, we’ll explore the normal, natural human dynamics of change and discuss the leadership mindset, toolset and skillset needed to overcome resistance, generate commitment versus compliance, and optimize project momentum.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 4 hours

Just as great technologies aren't successful without an effective business model, great technical experts in any discipline aren't necessarily going to be great performers or leaders because of their disciplinary expertise alone. In the past decade, we've learned a lot about the role that emotional intelligence (EQ) plays as a complement to IQ in differentiating the best performers from the rest, especially in leadership roles. In this workshop, we will explore the impact of personal competence and social competence, the two key dimensions of EQ, as key enablers of leadership effectiveness. We will discuss a few simple yet powerful practices and tools to help anyone demonstrate greater EQ and enhance personal connection, influence and impact.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

A system is a set of things working together to form a mechanism or interconnected network to produce a specific outcome. Organizations are systems but they are also subsystems of the larger systems (markets, industries, economies, societies) in which their goods and services are sold. Complex systems are systems of systems with distinct interactions such as nonlinearity, emergence, adaption and feedback. Innovation in complex systems requires what Peter Senge has called "systems thinking." In this course, we will explore systems thinking as set forth in Senge’s “The Fifth Discipline,” and also explore strategic systems thinking as described by Rod Adner in “The Wide Lens” as a path to competitive advantage, growth and profitability.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

Organizations operate within a framework of rules & regulations — some imposed internally and some imposed externally — that establish norms of behavior. When rules and regulations are ambiguous and consequential decisions must be made quickly, what guides us individually and collectively to do the right thing. This is when culture and ethics are of critical importance to an organization. It is particularly important in industries where scientific and medical intersect with business (e.g., healthcare and health tech innovation), In this course, a framework for evaluating ethics as an integral part of decision-making at all levels of the organization will be described and its application in a real-world setting will be explored using case studies from health technology innovation and healthcare delivery. How this framework can be incorporated into your organization's culture will also be discussed.

Instructor: Kirsten Parker

Typical Length: 8 hours

Kirsten Parker’ morning program will empower you to write with more confidence, recognize patterns of wordiness, edit for clarity and emphasis, avoid common errors that undermine your credibility, proofread effectively and use a three-step approach to organize your messages. Her afternoon session will empower you to deliver your presentations with poise and confidence by applying Bert Decker’s nine behavioral skills to master the physical act of speaking effectively while thinking on your feet.

Course Director: David Y.H. Pui, University of Minnesota Regents Professor and Member of National Academy of Engineering

Course Length: 3 days                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
This is the 45th offering of the well-known aerosol and particle measurement short course. In 2019, it attracted 75 registrants from industry, government, and academia. A total of 2,600 registrants attended the annual short course. Besides the lectures given by a group of 9 internationally renowned lecturers, there are many hands-on laboratory experiments at UMN and TSI. You will have the opportunities to employ best practices to optimize your measurements and discuss measurement techniques with instructors and fellow course participants.

For registration and more information visit the Aerosol and Particle Measurement Short Course page.

Instructor: Dr. Tariq Samad

Typical Length: 8 hours

Control science and systems thinking offer a rigorous approach to effective decision making in uncertain, complex environments. This course will introduce participants to the fields and discuss how they can offer insights for decision-makers and managers.

Instructor: Dr. Tariq Samad

Typical Length: 8 hours

Methodology for identifying and understanding emerging technologies that could fundamentally change how we do things. Focus on selected technologies that are poised to have a significant societal impact and are continuing to open new business opportunities — we call these pivotal technologies. The current state-of-the-art concepts/tools for several technologies, together with barriers and opportunities for successful implementation will be addressed.

Instructor: Judy Pennington

Typical Length: 8 hours

The simultaneous transitions in the economy, demographics and technology are creating new challenges for businesses and disruptions of entire industries now occur at speeds beyond the experience of most managements. This session will explore what it takes to transform into a service-oriented digital organization through the highly-intentional collaboration between technology and business. Identify what "being digital" means and explore the digital maturity continuum of companies.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

Pivotal technologies are those poised to transform how we live and work. Healthcare technologies emerge from a landscape of discovery in science and engineering that is as complex as it is diverse, and they find their way into society and business in ways that are sometimes obvious and sometimes not. In this course, we will explore methods to identify emerging technologies and gain an understanding of their potential impact on healthcare generally, but particularly on your organization's ability to create value and establish or maintain a competitive advantage in the healthcare economy.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

"Data, data everywhere but little time to think!" might be an apt description of the plight of the modern business “mariner” adrift in a sea of data seemingly without form or substance. Strategic decision-making requires more than data, it requires a reasonable, reliable and replicable framework that can be used to identify critical features of a data set that are critical decisionmaking and to evaluate those features in a meaningful way. In this course, we will describe methods commonly used for this purpose and practice using them to enhance or improve both individual and organizational decision-making.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

Preparing the Board and C-Suite for their role in cybersecurity risk management. This course provides the foundation for understanding Cybersecurity risk governance and the expected involvement of the board of directors in protecting an organization from the inevitable impact of a security incident.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

Cybersecurity risks exist in every organization, whether you have planned for it or not. This class will provide an improved understanding of the cybersecurity risks facing every organization no matter the size, and give you the tools to assess the risks and threats facing your business and prepare for the impact of an incident.

Instructor: TBA

Typical Length: 8 hours

Threats and vulnerabilities can come from a million directions including mobile devices, employees, service providers and the Internet of Things. This course will inform your organization of what to look for and how to react to these threats, including guidance on policies, standards and technology to manage the risk and remain productive in the new economy.