Soft Skills • 1 Day • HRD Corp Claimable

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving Training Malaysia

Root-cause discipline and decision frameworks for teams that fix symptoms

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving is a one-day soft skills programme teaching participants to define problems precisely, find root causes instead of symptoms, and choose between options with an explicit decision framework. Redefine Learning Asia delivers it on live problems: each team brings one recurring workplace problem and leaves with a root-cause analysis and a tested countermeasure plan for it, built during the session.

Duration

1 Day

Group Size

15 to 30 participants

Format

On-site / Virtual

HRD Corp

Claimable

When This Programme Is the Right One

The symptom: The same problems keep coming back, meetings jump to solutions before the problem is defined, and decisions get made on the loudest opinion rather than evidence.

Start from the symptom your team is showing rather than the programme name — buying in the wrong order usually convinces leadership that training does not work. Compare every programme side by side in our symptom-to-programme comparison table.

Learning Outcomes

Participants write problem statements that are specific, measurable, and free of embedded solutions.
Root-cause tools — 5 Whys, fishbone, and evidence checks — are applied to a real recurring problem from the participants’ own workplace.
Options are compared with a weighted decision matrix instead of debate stamina.
Common thinking traps — confirmation bias, sunk cost, and authority bias — are recognised and named in live discussion.

Programme Agenda

Time	Module	What Happens
9.00am – 10.30am	Defining the real problem	Problem statement discipline: what is happening, where, since when, and how big — with the team’s own recurring problem as the working case.
10.45am – 12.30pm	Root-cause analysis	5 Whys and fishbone applied to the live case, with the facilitator challenging every cause that lacks evidence.
1.30pm – 3.00pm	Generating and testing options	Divergent option generation, then a weighted decision matrix that forces trade-offs into the open.
3.15pm – 4.30pm	Thinking traps	Confirmation bias, sunk cost, anchoring, and authority bias — demonstrated live on the day’s own discussions.
4.30pm – 5.00pm	Countermeasure plan and close	Each team commits to a countermeasure, an owner, a date, and the metric that will show whether the root cause is actually fixed.

Activities

Live case analysis

The team’s own recurring problem, worked end-to-end — the deliverable is a real countermeasure plan, not a workbook exercise.

Evidence challenge

Every claimed cause must survive the question "what evidence do we have?" — the discipline that separates root cause from opinion.

Decision matrix build

Options scored against weighted criteria in the open, so the choice is defensible after the meeting ends.

Bias spotting

Facilitators flag thinking traps as they occur in the room during the day — the most memorable demonstration available.

Delivery, Pricing & HRD Corp

Formats: On-site, virtual, or hybrid. English, Bahasa Malaysia, or Mandarin.
Group size: 15 to 30 participants
Indicative investment: Quoted per group; one-day facilitated programmes typically run RM8,000–RM14,000 per group. Full breakdowns in the 2026 cost guide, or model your claim with the HRD Corp claim calculator.
HRD Corp claimable: Yes. This programme is structured as HRD Corp claimable training under SBL-Khas — certified trainer, documented learning outcomes, minimum contact hours, attendance records, and a completion report formatted for your claim. The grant must be approved at least 14 calendar days before the training date under Employer’s Circular No. 2/2026, so book three to four weeks ahead. See the full claim walkthrough in our HRD Corp claimable training guide.

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving FAQs

A recurring operational problem the team owns and has tried to fix at least once — a quality issue, a repeated delay, a process that keeps breaking. The sponsor agrees the problem with us before the programme so the session starts working immediately. Avoid problems whose fix is outside the team’s control.

No. It borrows root-cause tools that Lean practitioners will recognise, but the focus is everyday managerial thinking — problem definition, evidence discipline, and decision quality — not statistical process control or belt certification.

That is the design intent: the plan leaves the room with an owner, a date, and a metric. Where the sponsor books a 90-minute follow-up review 4 to 6 weeks later, implementation rates are markedly higher — we recommend building that review into the engagement.

Two ways: the metric attached to the countermeasure plan (did the recurring problem stop recurring?), and manager observation of meeting behaviour — whether problems get defined before solutions get debated — against indicators agreed before delivery.

On-site, virtual, or hybrid. English, Bahasa Malaysia, or Mandarin. Redefine Learning Asia delivers nationwide, including Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang and Johor.

Request a proposal for Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

Tell us your team size and the problem you need this to fix. You will get a customised proposal with pricing, agenda, and the HRD Corp claim pathway.

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