KT Course Catalog — Service & Problem Management

Kepner-Tregoe · Course Catalog

KT Learning Tracks

Three industry tracks mapped to roles across the organization. Click any course to see the full description and module outline.

The KT engagement journey

Consultative sales · S + P

Discovery & Needs Analysis

Situation & Problem questions only — understanding the org before any measurement

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Situation — understand the environment

Establish context before diagnosing anything. Learn how the organization is structured, what tools and processes they use, and how work currently flows. The goal is orientation, not evaluation.

"How does your team currently handle a major incident?" · "Who owns the problem record after service is restored?" · "What does your change process look like today?"

Problem — surface the pain

Identify where current approaches are breaking down. Listen for recurring incidents, slow root cause analysis, decisions that get revisited, and knowledge that lives in one person's head. This is qualitative — you are hearing their perception of the problem, not measuring it yet. That comes after the diagnostic.

"Do you find the same issues coming back after they've been resolved?" · "How confident are people in the decisions they're making under pressure?" · "Where does the process tend to stall?"

Implication — deferred until after diagnostic

Implication questions require quantified evidence to land with credibility. Until the KT Ready Diagnostic has measured the organization, cost and impact claims are estimates. Complete the diagnostic first — then return here with data.

Need-payoff — deferred until after diagnostic

Need-payoff is most powerful when the buyer reacts to their own data, not a generic value statement. The Needs Confirmation & Proposal conversation — informed by diagnostic findings — is where these questions belong.

Optional · recommended

KT Ready Diagnostic

Interviews · process review · incident analysis · meeting studies · leading & lagging KT metrics

Quantifies the pain

Consultative sales · I + N

Needs Confirmation & Proposal

Implication & Need-payoff questions — now backed by diagnostic data. Cost of inaction is quantified. Buyer states the value in their own words. Structured proposal presented.

Data replaces assumption

Executive sponsors

Executive Leadership Workshop

KT concepts · diagnostic findings · rollout alignment

IT or generalist variant

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Post-ELW

Strategic Project Assignment

Participants assigned real organizational problems to solve using KT methods throughout the program

Skills development

Course Training

Participants attend courses from the matrix below — applied directly to their assigned strategic project

Iterative · per course cycle

KT Group Coaching

Coaching sessions follow each course — group reviews project work, applies methods, surfaces blockers

Repeats × sessions per cycle

train → apply → coach → repeat

Culmination event

Science Fair Showcase

Participants present strategic project results to executive sponsors + elevated audience

Closes the loop with leadership

Executive leadership workshop — available variants

IT & service management

ELW — IT & Service Management Leadership

A 1.5-day executive workshop for IT directors, VPs of operations, CIOs, and service management leaders. Day one builds the conceptual foundation needed to sponsor a KT rollout. A team dinner bridges into a focused half-day where leaders structure the program, select strategic projects, and make their commitments. Leaders leave aligned, equipped, and ready to launch.

1.5 days Executive audience Sponsorship alignment

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Generalist / cross-industry

ELW — Operational Excellence Leadership

A 1.5-day executive workshop for plant directors, operations VPs, general managers, and business unit leaders across manufacturing, automotive, logistics, and financial services. Day one covers KT concepts through the operational lens. A team dinner bridges into a focused half-day where leaders structure the program, select strategic projects, and make their commitments.

1.5 days Executive audience Sponsorship alignment

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Executive Leadership Workshop · IT & service management · 1.5 days

ELW — IT & Service Management Leadership

Designed for the executives and senior leaders who will sponsor a KT rollout across their IT or service management organization. This is not a practitioner course — it is a focused immersion that gives leaders just enough depth to be credible champions: they understand what their teams are learning, why the processes work, and what good application looks like in an IT context. Where a KT Ready Diagnostic has been completed, its findings are woven into day one so leaders see their own organization's data alongside the concepts. The team dinner is a deliberate transition — informal but structured, moving leaders from learning mode into planning mode before the half-day that follows.

Day 1 — concepts & context

The cost of reactive thinking: how organizations lose time, money, and trust to poorly resolved incidents and recurring problems

KT Ready Diagnostic findings (where applicable): current-state metrics, observed patterns, and opportunity areas specific to this organization

Overview of the KT rational process suite: what SA, PA, DA, PPA, and POA are and how they connect

KT in an IT context: how the processes apply to major incident response, problem management, and change decisions

Evening — team dinner

Informal group dinner — transition from learning to planning; open discussion on organizational readiness and early project ideas

Day 2 half-day — structure & commitment

What great looks like: examples of KT-driven improvements in IT environments and how to recognize progress

The rollout model: how the course matrix, strategic projects, coaching, and Science Fair work together

Strategic project selection: leaders identify and assign real organizational problems for participants to solve during the program

Executive commitments: what leaders agree to do — and not do — to protect the program's success

Executive Leadership Workshop · Generalist / cross-industry · 1.5 days

ELW — Operational Excellence Leadership

Designed for the plant directors, VPs, and general managers who will sponsor a KT rollout across their operational organization. Day one gives leaders the conceptual grounding to understand what their teams will learn, set meaningful strategic projects, and recognize the quality of work that comes back at the Science Fair. Where a KT Ready Diagnostic has been completed, its findings — including leading and lagging KT metrics, process documentation review, and meeting studies — are presented during day one to ground the concepts in the organization's own reality. The team dinner is a deliberate transition — informal but structured, moving leaders from learning mode into planning mode before the half-day that follows.

Day 1 — concepts & context

The cost of reactive thinking: how organizations lose time, money, and operational capacity to poor problem solving and weak decisions

KT Ready Diagnostic findings (where applicable): current-state metrics, process gaps, and improvement opportunities specific to this organization

Overview of the KT rational process suite: what SA, PA, DA, PPA, and POA are and how they connect

KT in an operational context: how the processes apply to production problems, quality issues, supply disruptions, and high-stakes decisions

Evening — team dinner

Informal group dinner — transition from learning to planning; open discussion on organizational readiness and early project ideas

Day 2 half-day — structure & commitment

What great looks like: examples of KT-driven improvements in manufacturing, automotive, and operations environments

The rollout model: how the course matrix, strategic projects, coaching, and Science Fair work together

Strategic project selection: leaders identify and assign real organizational problems for participants to solve during the program

Executive commitments: what leaders agree to do — and not do — to protect the program's success

Course catalog — learning tracks

IT & service management

ITSM / ITIL-aligned

Generalist / cross-industry

Automotive, mfg, finance, ops

Pharma & life sciences

GMP / FDA / ICH-aligned

Entry
Role-focused
starter courses

Service Desk & Helpdesk Foundations

Request mgmt Incident basics Change awareness

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SA + PA

RCA Fundamentals

Stop Think Fix

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SA + DA

Decision Making Excellence

Recommend Justify Lead

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GMP Front Line & Deviation Reporting

GMP basics Deviations Documentation

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IT & service management · Entry

Service Desk & Helpdesk Foundations

The daily operations course for service desk agents, helpdesk analysts, and tier 1 support staff. Covers the full range of day-to-day work: handling service requests, logging and classifying incidents, applying change awareness to avoid self-inflicted issues, and maintaining the knowledge base that makes the whole team faster over time. Grounded in ITIL 4 practice areas without requiring prior IT experience. This course does not cover major incident command or root cause investigation — those are addressed in the specialist courses that follow.

Course modules

ITSM fundamentals: ITIL 4 practice areas and the service desk's role in the value chain

Service request management: intake, fulfillment, and closure — the everyday workflow

Incident management basics: logging, categorizing, prioritizing, and resolving tier 1 issues

Change awareness for front-line staff: how to check for active changes before troubleshooting

Triage discipline: using known error databases, workarounds, and knowledge articles

Customer communication during active issues: tone, cadence, SLA awareness, and empathy

Escalation triggers: recognizing when a ticket exceeds tier 1 scope and handing off cleanly

Knowledge base hygiene: writing good articles, flagging outdated entries, and shift-left habits

Generalist / cross-industry · Entry · SA + PA

RCA Fundamentals

A focused, role-specific course for engineers, quality analysts, technicians, and supervisors whose primary need is structured problem investigation. Built on two KT processes: Situation Appraisal — which teaches practitioners to sort, prioritize, and assign the concerns in front of them — and Problem Analysis, which provides the IS / IS NOT specification method for identifying true root cause. Learners who complete this course gain a repeatable discipline for moving from "something is wrong" to "we know why and can prevent it." A natural on-ramp to the full Problem Solving & Decision Making course.

Course modules

Situation Appraisal: recognizing and separating concerns, threats, and opportunities

Setting priorities: urgency, seriousness, and growth — how to sequence what needs attention

Framing the problem: writing a precise object and deviation statement

The IS / IS NOT specification: collecting and organizing what you know about the problem

Generating cause hypotheses: what could explain both the IS and the IS NOT?

Testing hypotheses against the specification: distinguishing root cause from contributing factor

Verifying the cause and confirming the fix addresses the right thing

Documenting findings for handoff: keeping the investigation useful beyond the room

Generalist / cross-industry · Entry · SA + DA

Decision Making Excellence

A focused, role-specific course for managers, procurement leads, project owners, and anyone who regularly makes high-stakes choices with competing options, incomplete information, and real consequences. Built on two KT processes: Situation Appraisal — which teaches practitioners to surface and prioritize the right questions before deciding anything — and Decision Analysis, which provides a structured framework for evaluating options against what matters most. Learners who complete this course stop making decisions by instinct or committee pressure and start making them by design. A natural on-ramp to the full Problem Solving & Decision Making course.

Course modules

Situation Appraisal: surfacing the right decision to make before choosing how to make it

Setting priorities: is this a decision that needs a structured process, or just a judgment call?

Framing the decision: writing a clear decision statement and separating wants from needs

Establishing objectives: MUSTS that eliminate options and WANTS that differentiate them

Generating alternatives: expanding the option set before narrowing it

Evaluating alternatives: scoring options against weighted objectives without anchoring bias

Assessing adverse consequences: what could go wrong with the leading option?

Making the decision defensible: documenting the rationale so it survives scrutiny

Pharma & life sciences · Entry

GMP Front Line & Deviation Reporting

Built for manufacturing operators, QA associates, lab technicians, and production supervisors working in GMP-regulated environments. Covers the foundational regulatory expectation that all deviations must be identified, documented, and routed — and that front-line staff are the first and most critical layer of quality protection.

Course modules

GMP fundamentals: why compliance starts on the floor

What is a deviation? Planned vs. unplanned, minor vs. critical

Real-time deviation detection: observation, documentation, and immediate containment

Writing a good deviation record: who, what, where, when, and impact

Electronic quality management systems (e.g., Veeva, MasterControl)

Escalation and notification: when QA must be involved immediately

Out-of-specification (OOS) and out-of-trend (OOT) events at the bench

Regulatory expectations: FDA 21 CFR Part 211, EMA GMP, ICH Q10 basics

Incident managers
QA leads · ops commanders

Major Incident Management

P1/P2 severity Bridge command Stakeholders

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Comprehensive

Problem Solving & Decision Making

SA PA DA PPA POA

Operational excellence · full KT process suite
Available as Classic or PSDM XP (simulation-based)

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Critical Event & Escalation Management

Critical deviations Regulatory Recall readiness

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IT & service management · Phase 1

Major Incident Management

Prepares incident managers, on-call engineers, service desk leads, and NOC operators to command high-severity IT incidents from declaration through resolution. Covers how to run an effective bridge call, drive technical teams toward resolution without doing the technical work yourself, and manage stakeholder anxiety without losing focus on service restoration.

Course modules

Declaring a major incident: severity matrix, P1 vs. P2 criteria

The incident commander role: authority, accountability, and restraint

Running the bridge: structure, discipline, and managing a large call

Driving to resolution: hypothesis-driven diagnosis and time-boxing

Stakeholder communication: executive updates, customer notifications, status pages

Emergency change management during active incidents

Escalation and de-escalation: when to bring in vendors, leadership, or legal

Closing the incident: service confirmation, timeline capture, PIR initiation

Generalist / cross-industry · Phases 1 & 2 · Comprehensive

Problem Solving & Decision Making — Operational Excellence

The flagship cross-industry course for organizations that want to build a common thinking language across teams, roles, and levels. Covers the complete KT rational process suite: Situation Appraisal, Problem Analysis, Decision Analysis, Potential Problem Analysis, and Potential Opportunity Analysis — applied to real operational contexts in manufacturing, automotive, logistics, financial services, and beyond. The entry courses (RCA Fundamentals and Decision Making Excellence) each cover a focused subset; this is the course for organizations that want the full toolkit, or for individuals who have completed one entry course and want to extend into the complete system.

Delivery format

Classic — the standard facilitated course using structured case studies to build and apply each process. Participants work through realistic scenarios drawn from their industry context, guided by an instructor.

PSDM XP — an experiential variant that replaces case studies with immersive simulation activities woven throughout the course. Participants encounter the processes by living through them, not reading about them — making the learning faster to apply back on the job. Recommended for groups who learn by doing or where engagement and energy are a priority.

Course modules

The KT rational process suite: how SA, PA, DA, PPA, and POA work as an integrated thinking system

Situation Appraisal (SA): sorting concerns, setting priorities, and selecting the right process for the task

Problem Analysis (PA): object and deviation, IS / IS NOT specification, and verified root cause

From RCA to action: translating findings into corrective and preventive measures

Decision Analysis (DA): framing decisions, establishing MUSTS and WANTS, and evaluating alternatives

Potential Problem Analysis (PPA): stress-testing decisions and plans by identifying what could go wrong and building preventive actions

Potential Opportunity Analysis (POA): identifying what could go right and positioning the organization to capture it

Applying all five processes together: working through complex operational scenarios end to end, and sustaining the discipline across teams

Pharma & life sciences · Phase 1

Critical Event & Escalation Management

For QA managers, regulatory affairs leads, site directors, and plant quality heads who must manage high-severity GMP events — contamination findings, critical deviations, OOS investigations, or potential recall situations. Focuses on structured incident command, regulatory notification obligations, and cross-functional coordination under time pressure.

Course modules

Classifying critical events: severity, scope, and regulatory trigger assessment

Activating the quality incident command structure

Immediate containment decisions: hold, quarantine, and cease-and-desist

Regulatory notification obligations: FDA, EMA, and global health authority timelines

Internal escalation to senior management and executive leadership

Managing cross-functional teams: QA, regulatory, manufacturing, and legal

Recall readiness: risk assessment, mock recall processes, and agency communication

Closing the critical event: stability confirmation and transition to CAPA

Problem managers
CI leads · quality engineers

Problem Management & Root Cause Analysis

PIR / post-incident RCA Change mgmt

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CAPA Management & Corrective Action

CAPA lifecycle Effectiveness checks Audit-ready

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IT & service management · Phase 2

Problem Management & Root Cause Analysis

Designed for problem managers, change managers, SMEs, and service owners who lead post-incident reviews and own the prevention of recurrence. Bridges the gap between "we fixed the outage" and "we've permanently reduced the risk." Teaches structured root cause analysis adapted for IT environments, effective PIR facilitation, and how to package findings so that engineering and development teams can act on them — without requiring problem managers to become engineers, or engineers to become process managers.

Course modules

Problem management in ITIL 5: reactive vs. proactive problem management and the shift toward continuous improvement culture

The post-incident review (PIR): structure, participants, and a blame-free culture

Root cause analysis techniques: 5 Whys, fishbone, IS / IS NOT for IT

Distinguishing root cause from contributing factors and symptoms

Writing problem records and known error entries

Change management: CAB process, RFC creation, and risk assessment

Handing off to engineering: how to document and communicate RCA findings so development teams can prioritize, scope, and act — without re-litigating the investigation

Introduction to CI outcomes: understanding how fixes flow from problem records into backlogs, sprints, and verified improvement — and what good looks like when the loop closes

Pharma & life sciences · Phase 2

CAPA Management & Corrective Action

For QA specialists, CAPA coordinators, regulatory affairs staff, and quality system managers who own the formal corrective and preventive action process in a GMP-regulated organization. Covers everything from CAPA initiation through root cause investigation, action planning, implementation, and the effectiveness check — all audit-ready and aligned to ICH Q10 and FDA expectations.

Course modules

The CAPA lifecycle: when it opens, who owns it, and what "closed" really means

Regulatory expectations: FDA 483s, warning letters, and what auditors look for

Root cause analysis in a GMP context: IS / IS NOT, 5 Whys, fishbone

Distinguishing immediate correction from corrective action from preventive action

Writing a defensible CAPA record: investigations, evidence, and traceability

Implementation planning: task ownership, timelines, and change control integration

Effectiveness checks: designing a meaningful verification, not just a checkbox

CAPA trending and quality metrics: turning individual CAPAs into systemic insight

Engineering
& dev teams

Engineering & CI Integration

Dev engineering Backlog & sprints CI verification

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Continuous Improvement Execution

In development

Details coming soon

Quality Systems & Continuous Improvement

In development

Details coming soon

IT & service management · Phase 3 · Future / custom

Engineering & CI Integration

A custom engagement designed for software engineers, site reliability engineers, DevOps teams, and platform engineers who receive problem records and RCA outputs from problem management and must translate them into verified, durable fixes. Where Phase 3 ends at the handover, this course picks up inside the engineering workflow — teaching practitioners to read and act on problem documentation, scope and prioritize CI work in a backlog, and close the loop by confirming that a fix actually solved the underlying problem. Available as a standalone course or as an extension to a full IT track deployment.

Draft course modules

Reading a problem record: what problem managers are telling you and why it matters

Translating RCA findings into actionable engineering work: epics, stories, and acceptance criteria

Backlog prioritization for CI: how to stack-rank fixes against features without losing either

Sprint planning with CI in mind: carving out capacity for improvement work sustainably

Infrastructure and code changes that close known errors: patterns and pitfalls

Post-deployment verification: confirming that the fix actually resolved the problem (not just the symptom)

Feeding results back to problem management: updating known error records and closing the loop

Engineering's role in proactive problem management: surfacing risks before they become incidents

Analysts
data engineers
& presenters

Data Visualization & Executive Presentation

Visual communication Executive storytelling Live practice

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Generalist / cross-industry · Analysts & data presenters

Data Visualization & Executive Presentation

For analysts, data engineers, operations leads, and anyone who regularly translates complex quantitative findings into decisions. This course closes the gap between having the right answer and getting an executive audience to act on it. Participants learn to select the right chart type for their data story, apply typography and color with purpose, strip out visual noise, and structure a presentation so the insight lands before the first question is asked. Every module is hands-on — participants work with their own data and live presentations throughout, leaving with a rebuilt deck and a repeatable process for every presentation that follows.

Course modules

The executive audience: how senior decision-makers read data and what makes them stop listening

Finding the one insight: distilling complex analysis into a single defensible claim before building the deck

Chart selection: matching the right visual form to the relationship in your data — trend, comparison, composition, distribution

Typography and hierarchy: font choice, sizing, and spacing that guides the eye without distracting it

Color with purpose: using color to direct attention, encode meaning, and avoid the most common mistakes

Eliminating noise: removing gridlines, legends, labels, and decorations that compete with the data

Slide architecture: how to structure a presentation so the narrative is clear before the presenter speaks

Live conversion workshop: participants rebuild a real presentation in class using the principles covered — and present it back for structured critique

IT & service management

Generalist / cross-industry

Pharma & life sciences

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