Project Collaboration Skills Training Course

Duration 10 days 20 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Project Managers, Programme Managers and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-PM-111

Before you join: Participants should have experience contributing to, leading or supporting projects with multiple stakeholders.

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

Projects fail to deliver when specialist teams, sponsors, suppliers and operational users work from different assumptions, make decisions in separate forums or leave interfaces unmanaged. The resulting problems are familiar: duplicated work, late approvals, unresolved conflicts, missed handoffs and escalation routes that are used only after damage has occurred. Strong project collaboration is not simply good interpersonal behaviour; it requires explicit structures for roles, information, decisions, commitments and constructive challenge.

This course develops the practical collaboration skills and operating methods needed to coordinate complex project work. Participants learn to map stakeholders and dependencies, establish decision rights, build team charters, run productive meetings, manage commitments, communicate across technical and non-technical groups, and resolve conflict before it becomes a delivery issue. The course uses established methods including RACI, DACI, stakeholder power-interest analysis, Kanban, RAID logs, Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes and SBI feedback.

Participants apply the methods throughout the programme to a current or realistic project. They build a collaboration plan covering stakeholder engagement, governance, communication channels, decision protocols, meeting cadence, interface controls, conflict routes and performance measures. Short instructor briefings are followed by case analysis, facilitated group work, simulations and structured review of participant work. Graduates leave with a reusable project collaboration toolkit and a completed collaboration plan ready for adaptation to their own project.

The course is suited to project managers, workstream leads, PMO staff, technical leads and business representatives who must align contributors with different priorities, reporting lines and professional languages. It is particularly relevant for projects involving public-sector partners, regulated operations, technology delivery, infrastructure, transformation programmes or outsourced suppliers.

What you will be able to do

  • Map project stakeholders, dependencies and influence using a power-interest grid and interface analysis
  • Design project collaboration structures using team charters, RACI matrices and decision-rights models
  • Run decision-focused meetings using agendas, facilitation techniques, action logs and escalation rules
  • Create communication plans that match stakeholder needs, project risks and governance requirements
  • Manage cross-functional commitments through Kanban boards, handoff criteria and accountability reviews
  • Apply Thomas-Kilmann, SBI feedback and interest-based negotiation techniques to project conflict
  • Measure collaboration performance using leading indicators, pulse checks and delivery-based evidence
  • Produce and present a complete project collaboration plan for a live or realistic project

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Build confidence leading meetings where competing priorities require clear decisions
  • Reduce time spent chasing updates, clarifying ownership and resolving avoidable misunderstandings
  • Handle difficult stakeholder conversations using structured feedback and conflict-resolution methods
  • Create visible collaboration arrangements that strengthen credibility with sponsors and project teams
  • Leave with a project-specific collaboration plan ready for workplace use

For your organisation

  • Fewer delays caused by unclear ownership, missing handoffs and unresolved decisions
  • More consistent project governance across teams, suppliers and business functions
  • Earlier identification of stakeholder resistance, interface risks and delivery conflicts
  • Better-quality decisions through defined decision rights, evidence requirements and escalation paths
  • Reusable collaboration templates that reduce variation between project teams

Course modules

20 modules over 10 days

Participants can explain how collaboration structures affect project delivery, decisions and stakeholder confidence.

  • Project collaboration as coordinated commitments, information flows, decisions and handoffs
  • ISO 21502 stakeholder collaboration principles and governance expectations
  • Systems mapping of dependencies, interfaces, feedback loops and constraints
  • Diagnosing collaboration failures through delays, rework, escalation and unclear ownership
  • Project lifecycle choices affecting collaboration intensity and decision cadence
  • Individual collaboration style assessment using observable workplace behaviours

Participants can identify stakeholder needs, influence patterns and engagement priorities for a project.

  • Stakeholder registers distinguishing sponsors, users, suppliers, regulators and delivery teams
  • Power-interest grid used to prioritise engagement and communication effort
  • Salience model assessing stakeholder power, legitimacy and urgency
  • Mapping stakeholder expectations, concerns, success criteria and decision authority
  • Political mapping of informal influence, alliances and potential resistance
  • Engagement strategies matched to stakeholder position and project impact

Participants can create a team charter that establishes shared working agreements and delivery expectations.

  • Team charter purpose, scope, membership, objectives and behavioural commitments
  • Working agreements for responsiveness, availability, challenge and respectful disagreement
  • Defining shared project purpose through outcome statements and success measures
  • Tuckman team-development stages and appropriate leadership responses
  • Psychological safety conditions for reporting risks, errors and dissent
  • Charter review triggers following scope changes, turnover or delivery disruption

Participants can define accountability and decision authority across project roles and governance forums.

  • RACI matrices separating responsible, accountable, consulted and informed roles
  • DACI model for decisions requiring drivers, approvers and contributors
  • Decision-rights map covering scope, budget, risk, quality and change
  • Avoiding RACI overload through meaningful accountabilities and clear role boundaries
  • Governance forums aligned with delegated authority and decision thresholds
  • Escalation paths for blocked decisions, conflicts and unresolved delivery risks

Participants can manage cross-team dependencies and establish reliable project handoff arrangements.

  • Dependency mapping across workstreams, suppliers, systems and operational teams
  • Interface registers capturing inputs, outputs, owners, timing and acceptance criteria
  • Defining handoff readiness through entry criteria and exit criteria
  • Critical path dependencies requiring frequent coordination and early escalation
  • Service-level agreements adapted for internal project-to-operations handoffs
  • Managing assumptions that affect external teams and downstream deliverables

Participants can build a targeted communication plan for project stakeholders and delivery teams.

  • Communication plans linking audiences, messages, channels, owners and timing
  • Stakeholder message maps addressing benefits, impacts, risks and required actions
  • Selecting synchronous and asynchronous channels for different coordination needs
  • Information radiators showing progress, decisions, risks and upcoming commitments
  • Plain-language communication for technical, executive and operational audiences
  • Feedback loops that confirm understanding rather than merely distributing information

Participants can design and facilitate project meetings that produce decisions, commitments and follow-through.

  • Meeting purpose statements distinguishing information, consultation, decision and problem-solving sessions
  • Agenda design using desired outcomes, timeboxes and pre-read requirements
  • Facilitation techniques for balanced participation and focused discussion
  • Decision logs recording rationale, authority, assumptions and follow-up actions
  • Action logs with owners, due dates, dependencies and completion evidence
  • Closing meetings through commitment checks, recap and escalation confirmation

Participants can make work commitments visible and manage flow across project contributors.

  • Kanban boards visualising work stages, owners, blockers and work limits
  • Pull planning for sequencing commitments from milestone dates backwards
  • Daily coordination routines for rapidly changing project delivery work
  • Work-in-progress limits preventing overload and hidden queue accumulation
  • Commitment conversations specifying deliverables, dates, conditions and dependencies
  • Aging analysis identifying stalled actions and unattended project commitments

Participants can give and receive project feedback that addresses behaviour, impact and required change.

  • SBI feedback model describing situation, behaviour and observed impact
  • Feedforward conversations focused on future actions and support requirements
  • Separating observable facts from interpretations, assumptions and personal judgements
  • Questioning techniques that test reasoning without provoking defensiveness
  • Receiving feedback through clarification, acknowledgement and agreed next steps
  • Documenting feedback actions when project performance or conduct requires follow-up

Participants can diagnose project conflict and select appropriate resolution strategies.

  • Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes and appropriate situational use
  • Distinguishing task conflict, process conflict, relationship conflict and value conflict
  • Interest-based negotiation separating positions from underlying needs and constraints
  • Conflict mapping of parties, issues, power, emotions and possible outcomes
  • Mediation steps for restoring dialogue between interdependent project contributors
  • Escalating conflict when authority, conduct or project risk requires intervention

Participants can gain commitment from stakeholders who do not report directly to them.

  • Sources of influence including expertise, relationships, information and reciprocity
  • Stakeholder value propositions tailored to priorities, concerns and incentives
  • Coalition building among sponsors, subject experts and operational champions
  • Reciprocity agreements clarifying support exchanged between project participants
  • Framing requests around project outcomes, risks and stakeholder benefits
  • Ethical influence boundaries avoiding manipulation, coercion and undisclosed agendas

Participants can select decision methods suited to urgency, complexity and stakeholder impact.

  • Decision matrix comparing options against weighted project criteria
  • Consensus, consent, consultation and delegated decisions compared clearly
  • Five Whys analysis locating causes behind recurring coordination problems
  • Pre-mortem analysis identifying likely failure modes before commitment
  • Decision quality criteria covering evidence, risk, reversibility and timing
  • Documenting dissent while maintaining commitment to the agreed decision

Participants can use shared controls to coordinate responses to project uncertainty and disruption.

  • RAID logs integrating risks, assumptions, issues and dependency records
  • Risk workshops structured around causes, events, impacts and responses
  • Issue ownership, decision deadlines and escalation thresholds defined explicitly
  • Assumption validation schedules linked to milestones and external dependencies
  • Cross-functional risk reviews focused on interfaces and compounded exposure
  • Lessons learned captured during delivery rather than after project closure

Participants can establish effective collaboration routines for distributed and hybrid project teams.

  • Remote working agreements covering response times, availability and meeting etiquette
  • Asynchronous updates structured through standard formats and visible decision records
  • Time-zone planning that distributes inconvenience fairly across team members
  • Virtual meeting facilitation using check-ins, structured turns and decision summaries
  • Digital collaboration risks including exclusion, information fragmentation and meeting overload
  • Channel governance defining where discussions, decisions and documents belong

Participants can establish productive working arrangements with external suppliers and partner organisations.

  • Supplier governance defining accountabilities, reporting cycles and performance reviews
  • Joint operating procedures for incidents, changes, approvals and escalations
  • Contractual obligations translated into practical working-level collaboration arrangements
  • Shared milestones and acceptance criteria preventing disputed deliverable completion
  • Commercial tensions managed through evidence, dialogue and documented agreements
  • Partner relationship reviews separating delivery performance from strategic relationship health

Participants can measure whether collaboration arrangements are improving project delivery performance.

  • Leading indicators including decision cycle time, action aging and response rates
  • Collaboration pulse checks measuring clarity, trust, workload and information access
  • Network analysis identifying isolated contributors and overloaded coordination points
  • Meeting effectiveness measures based on decisions, actions and participant value
  • Interface performance tracked through handoff quality, rework and delay data
  • Review dashboards linking collaboration indicators to schedule, cost and quality

Participants can structure planning sessions that align contributors around milestones, risks and commitments.

  • Milestone planning linking outcomes, deliverables, dependencies and accountable owners
  • Critical chain concepts identifying resource constraints and protective buffers
  • Planning assumptions tested with subject experts and delivery stakeholders
  • Scenario planning for likely disruptions, approvals and external dependencies
  • Shared planning boards making sequencing conflicts visible before execution
  • Commitment-based planning converting activities into reliable promises between contributors

Participants can prepare and conduct difficult project conversations while preserving working relationships.

  • Conversation preparation identifying facts, interests, requests and non-negotiable boundaries
  • DESC script for describing issues and requesting behavioural change
  • Escalation briefs summarising impact, options, recommendation and required authority
  • Managing emotional responses through pauses, acknowledgement and return to evidence
  • Boundary setting when commitments, conduct or capacity become unacceptable
  • Post-escalation recovery actions rebuilding clarity, trust and delivery focus

Participants can integrate stakeholder, governance and communication controls into one usable project collaboration plan.

  • Combining stakeholder, governance, communication and interface plans into one structure
  • Prioritising collaboration controls according to project complexity and delivery risk
  • Aligning collaboration milestones with project phases, gates and key decisions
  • Testing plan completeness against likely conflicts, delays and stakeholder concerns
  • Assigning ownership for collaboration controls, reviews and improvement actions
  • Preparing concise executive summaries for sponsor approval and team adoption

Participants can build, review and present a complete project collaboration plan for a live or realistic project.

  • Complete stakeholder analysis with engagement priorities and influence strategies
  • Team charter defining purpose, behaviours, roles and working agreements
  • RACI and DACI models for critical delivery activities and decisions
  • Communication, meeting and escalation plan matched to project governance
  • Interface, RAID and commitment controls addressing major delivery dependencies
  • Peer review against usability, completeness, risks and implementation feasibility

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

What you take back to work

  1. Project collaboration plan template
  2. Stakeholder power-interest analysis
  3. Team charter template
  4. RACI and DACI decision-rights pack
  5. Project communication and meeting cadence plan
  6. RAID and interface management checklist

Who should attend

  • Project Managers — need reliable structures for coordinating contributors, decisions and delivery commitments
  • Programme Managers — need consistent collaboration practices across interdependent projects and workstreams
  • Project Management Office Staff — need practical standards, templates and governance controls for project teams
  • Workstream Leads — need to align specialist contributors, manage handoffs and resolve delivery blockers
  • Technical Leads — need methods for translating technical dependencies into clear commitments and decisions
  • Business Sponsors and Product Owners — need visibility of decisions, stakeholder expectations and project accountability

Skills and tools covered

Stakeholder alignmentDecision rights designProject communication planningConflict resolutionMeeting facilitationInterface management

Tools and standards

ISO 21502, RACI, DACI, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course combines short instructor briefings with project cases, facilitated group analysis, meeting simulations and structured application planning. Participants examine realistic situations involving competing stakeholders, delayed approvals, supplier interfaces, technical handoffs and conflicting delivery priorities. They practise using collaboration tools rather than discussing them only in theory. Throughout the course, participants develop a collaboration plan for a live project or a detailed case project, receive peer and instructor feedback, and refine their materials before the final presentation.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience contributing to, leading or supporting projects with multiple stakeholders. They should understand basic project terms such as scope, schedule, risks, milestones, stakeholders and governance. Experience of project meetings, reporting or workstream coordination is useful because participants apply tools to realistic delivery situations. Formal project management certification is not required. No prior knowledge of Agile, PMI standards, negotiation theory or organisational psychology is required. Participants do not need to be project managers, but should expect to work with project teams and cross-functional stakeholders.

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 understand basic project concepts and have some experience working with project teams, workstreams or stakeholders. Formal project management certification is not required, and the course explains each collaboration method before participants apply it.

Bring details of a current, upcoming or recently completed project where collaboration has been important. Useful materials include a stakeholder list, project schedule, governance structure, recurring meeting agenda or examples of delivery issues.

It is designed for project managers, programme managers, PMO professionals, workstream leads, technical leads and business representatives. It is most useful for people coordinating contributors who have different reporting lines, priorities or professional backgrounds.

General project management courses address scope, schedule, cost, risk and delivery controls across the full project discipline. This course concentrates on the human and operational arrangements that make those controls work: stakeholder alignment, decision rights, communication, meetings, conflict and interfaces.

Participants create a collaboration plan that can be adapted for their own project immediately after the course. The templates support practical actions such as clarifying accountabilities, resetting meeting routines, improving handoffs and establishing escalation routes.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours, excluding breaks. The first part establishes core collaboration structures, while the later modules deepen conflict, influence, supplier, hybrid-working and performance-management skills before the capstone presentation.

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

More courses in Project Management

Project Management Project Appraisal and Risk Management Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Project Management Project Audit and Quality Assurance Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Project Management Project Auditing and Quality Reviews Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Project Management Project Budgeting and Cost Estimation Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Project Management Project Controls Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Project Management Project Controls, Risk and Governance Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Project Management Project Crisis and Recovery Management Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Project Management Project Decision Making Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov