Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss educational technologies that meet modern requirements for training and retraining managers. The authors demonstrate the potential of interactive learning technologies in the development of independent thinking of graduates as an example of implementation of Graduate School of Management (GSOM), St Petersburg University, educational programs. Design/methodology/approach – The data in this paper are drawn from a survey by the authors in 2010 of students attending the programs for executives in GSOM (n=49). Findings – The survey reported that intellectual competitions contribute to achieving independence of participants thinking. The most popular intellectual competitions methods are panel discussion (first place); simulation games with varying roles (team-consultant and team-client) and case studies (second place), and modeling professional situations with limited information in writing and calculations (third place). Research limitations and implications