Leading Cross Functional Collaboration Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Functional Managers, Project Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-141

Before you join: Participants should have at least two years of professional experience and current or recent involvement in work requiring coordination with other functions.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Cross-functional work often fails at the boundaries between functions: unclear ownership, competing targets, slow decisions, incomplete handoffs and meetings that produce discussion rather than commitments. Leaders may be accountable for outcomes without having direct authority over every contributor. This creates delivery delays, rework, customer friction, budget pressure and avoidable conflict between business units, technical teams, operations, finance, risk and service functions.

This course develops the practical leadership methods required to coordinate work across organisational boundaries. Participants diagnose collaboration failures, map stakeholders and dependencies, establish a shared mandate, clarify decision rights and create working agreements. They use RACI, RAPID, SIPOC, stakeholder mapping and conflict-management techniques to improve information flow, resolve competing priorities and maintain accountability across distributed teams. Attention is given to influencing without authority, handling escalation, running decision-focused meetings and measuring collaboration performance.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic cases, group analysis, role-based simulations and structured application to participants' own cross-functional challenges. Participants leave with a cross-functional collaboration action pack containing a charter, stakeholder map, decision-rights matrix, handoff analysis, meeting cadence and 90-day implementation plan. The five-day course is available in classrooms in more than 50 cities or live online. Each participant receives a certificate of completion.

The course suits managers and project leaders who must deliver shared outcomes across functions, whether they work in government, banking, infrastructure, healthcare, NGOs, manufacturing, technology or corporate services.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose cross-functional collaboration failures using systems thinking and root-cause analysis
  • Create a team charter defining shared purpose, scope, roles and success measures
  • Map stakeholders, dependencies and influence pathways for a cross-functional initiative
  • Apply RACI and RAPID to clarify responsibilities and decision rights
  • Design handoff controls using SIPOC and service-level agreements
  • Facilitate decision-focused meetings that produce commitments, owners and due dates
  • Resolve priority conflicts using interest-based negotiation and escalation protocols
  • Produce a 90-day cross-functional collaboration implementation plan

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Lead cross-functional initiatives with clearer authority and expectations
  • Reduce time lost to unclear ownership and repeated escalation
  • Handle disagreement between functions without damaging working relationships
  • Build credibility when influencing senior peers outside direct reporting lines
  • Apply a practical 90-day plan to a current collaboration challenge

For your organisation

  • Faster decisions through explicit decision rights and escalation routes
  • Fewer delivery delays caused by unclear dependencies and handoffs
  • Reduced rework through shared definitions, service expectations and ownership
  • Better alignment between functional targets and enterprise priorities
  • Stronger accountability for commitments across multi-function initiatives

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can identify the structural and behavioural causes of cross-functional collaboration failures.

  • Cross-functional value streams mapped from customer request to delivered outcome
  • Systems thinking identifies local optimisation, feedback loops and unintended consequences
  • Team charters define shared purpose, boundaries, sponsors and success measures
  • Operating context assessed through authority, incentives, constraints and dependencies
  • Diagnostic interviews distinguish symptoms, root causes and recurring coordination failures
  • Collaboration maturity assessed using evidence from meetings, handoffs and decisions

Participants can identify critical stakeholders and build support for shared work.

  • Stakeholder mapping ranks influence, interest, impact and engagement requirements
  • Power-interest grids identify sponsors, blockers, advocates and affected groups
  • Influence without authority uses credibility, reciprocity, framing and coalition building
  • Stakeholder interviews surface interests, concerns, assumptions and non-negotiable constraints
  • Communication plans match message, channel, timing and stakeholder decision needs
  • Sponsor roles distinguish advocacy, resource approval, escalation and strategic direction

Participants can create clear agreements on objectives, responsibilities and authority.

  • Outcome statements connect customer value, operational targets and strategic priorities
  • SMART measures establish shared performance expectations and reporting thresholds
  • RACI assigns responsible, accountable, consulted and informed roles
  • RAPID clarifies recommend, agree, perform, input and decide responsibilities
  • Decision logs record options, evidence, owners, dates and review triggers
  • Working agreements set response times, information standards and behavioural commitments

Participants can improve coordination at process boundaries and dependency points.

  • SIPOC maps suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs and customer requirements
  • Dependency mapping exposes predecessor tasks, constraints, interfaces and critical paths
  • Handoff agreements specify entry criteria, output quality and acceptance ownership
  • Service-level agreements define response times, escalation points and performance measures
  • Standard work reduces variation in recurring cross-functional transactions
  • Control points detect incomplete information before work transfers between functions

Participants can establish communication routines that support timely decisions and follow-through.

  • Meeting architecture separates information sharing, problem solving and decision making
  • Decision-focused agendas state required decisions, evidence and accountable owners
  • Daily huddles manage immediate blockers, priorities and operational commitments
  • Weekly coordination forums review dependencies, risks, changes and escalation needs
  • Action registers capture commitments, owners, deadlines, status and overdue actions
  • Visual management boards display workflow, bottlenecks, decisions and performance trends

Participants can address interpersonal and task conflict constructively across functional boundaries.

  • Psychological safety supports challenge, error reporting and informed dissent
  • Thomas-Kilmann modes distinguish competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating
  • Interest-based negotiation separates positions from underlying needs and constraints
  • Difficult conversations use observation, impact, inquiry and specific requests
  • Conflict diagnosis separates relationship, process, data and values disputes
  • Repair conversations address broken commitments, trust breaches and future safeguards

Participants can gain agreement when functions face competing demands and limited capacity.

  • Priority criteria compare customer impact, risk, cost, urgency and strategic fit
  • Capacity conversations distinguish demand, available effort, constraints and trade-offs
  • Business cases frame requests through benefits, costs, risks and assumptions
  • Options analysis presents consequences of funding, sequencing and scope decisions
  • Escalation protocols define unresolved issues, authority levels and decision deadlines
  • Negotiation preparation identifies alternatives, concessions, interests and walk-away points

Participants can coordinate execution while maintaining visibility of risks, commitments and changes.

  • Integrated plans connect milestones, dependencies, owners and decision gates
  • RAID logs track risks, assumptions, issues and interdependencies
  • Change-control routines assess scope, schedule, cost and resource implications
  • Issue management distinguishes immediate containment from permanent corrective action
  • Escalation conversations present impact, options, recommendation and required decision
  • Status reporting communicates progress, exceptions, decisions and next commitments

Participants can measure collaboration performance and strengthen accountability over time.

  • Collaboration metrics measure cycle time, rework, decision latency and handoff quality
  • Balanced scorecards connect functional measures with shared outcome measures
  • After-action reviews identify expected results, actual results and learning points
  • Root-cause analysis uses five whys and cause-and-effect diagrams
  • Accountability reviews test commitments, evidence, barriers and corrective actions
  • Recognition practices reinforce collaborative behaviours and shared delivery outcomes

Participants can prepare a focused plan for improving a current cross-functional working relationship.

  • Current-state assessment summarises stakeholder, decision, handoff and communication gaps
  • Target operating model defines routines, roles, measures and governance forums
  • Ninety-day plans sequence quick wins, milestones, owners and review dates
  • Adoption risks identify resistance, capability gaps and sponsor actions
  • Implementation measures establish baselines, targets, review cycles and accountability
  • Personal leadership commitments specify behaviours, conversations and follow-up actions

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Cross-functional team charter template
  2. Stakeholder influence map
  3. RACI and RAPID decision-rights matrix
  4. SIPOC handoff analysis worksheet
  5. Collaboration meeting cadence plan
  6. 90-day collaboration implementation plan

Who should attend

  • Functional Managers — coordinate outcomes requiring contribution from other departments
  • Project Managers — manage dependencies, handoffs and decisions across project teams
  • Programme Managers — align multiple workstreams with competing priorities and sponsors
  • Operations Managers — improve service handoffs between front-line and support functions
  • Product Managers — align business, technology, risk and customer-facing teams
  • Senior Specialists — influence peers and leaders without formal authority

Skills and tools covered

Stakeholder alignmentDecision rights designCross-functional influenceHandoff managementConflict resolutionCollaboration governance

Tools and standards

RACI, RAPID, SIPOC, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short briefings to introduce each method, followed by case analysis, small-group design work and facilitated discussion. Participants map a realistic cross-functional operating problem, test decision-rights models and practise influence and conflict conversations through simulations. Group exercises examine handoffs, stakeholder interests, meeting routines and escalation choices. Instructor feedback links each method to government, financial services, corporate and operational settings. Application planning converts learning into actions participants can use with their own teams after the course.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have at least two years of professional experience and current or recent involvement in work requiring coordination with other functions. They should understand their organisation's basic structure, reporting lines and operating priorities, and be prepared to discuss a real collaboration challenge without disclosing sensitive information. Prior management experience is useful but not essential. No formal leadership qualification, project management certification, process-improvement credential or prior knowledge of RACI, RAPID or SIPOC is required.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience working with colleagues outside your own function and a basic understanding of how work moves through your organisation. Prior formal management experience is useful but not required, and no certification is needed.

Bring a current or recent cross-functional challenge, such as a delayed project, difficult handoff, contested decision or service problem. You do not need to bring confidential documents; anonymised examples are sufficient.

It is designed for functional managers, project and programme managers, operations leaders, product managers and senior specialists. It is especially relevant to people accountable for results that depend on teams they do not directly manage.

General leadership courses focus on leading direct reports, while project management courses focus on planning and control. This course concentrates on the relationships, decision rights, handoffs, influence and governance needed between functions.

Participants use the templates to clarify a real collaboration problem, agree roles and decision rights, and establish communication routines. The final module produces a 90-day plan that can be discussed with a manager, sponsor or project team.

The programme provides about 32.5 contact hours, normally delivered from 08:30 to 16:30 each day. Time is split between instructor input, cases, group exercises, simulations, peer discussion and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

Related courses in Leadership Development