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Afflatus Consulting GroupAfflatus Consulting Group

Course sheet · 2027 catalogueSoft skills

Cooperating Across Departments: Cross-Functional Relations

Production and maintenance, quality and logistics, purchasing and sales: many malfunctions are born at the interfaces between departments. This day helps managers and support functions understand the other side’s constraints, clarify who does what at the boundaries and settle a disagreement between departments without always escalating it. Participants map their real interfaces and leave with a written working agreement.

Duration1 day

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Objectives

  1. Map your department’s interfaces and the recurring points of friction
  2. Explain the constraints, objectives and indicators of the departments you work with
  3. Clarify roles at the boundaries between departments using a responsibility matrix
  4. Run a meeting to resolve a disagreement between departments
  5. Write a working agreement between two departments: expectations, lead times, information flow

Programme

Day 1 — morning

  • Why departments clash: different objectives, opposing indicators, the vocabulary of each trade
  • Mapping interfaces: internal customers and suppliers, information flows, points of friction
  • Putting yourself in the other department’s place: a role swap between production and maintenance or sales and logistics
  • Influencing without line authority: credibility, reciprocity, internal network

Day 1 — afternoon (workshop)

  • Who decides, who carries out, who is consulted, who is informed at the boundaries between departments
  • Role play: a resolution meeting after a stock-out blamed in turn on purchasing, planning and the stores
  • Workshop: a working agreement between two departments represented in the group
  • Knowledge test and mutual commitments

Teaching methods

  • Mapping of participants’ real interfaces
  • Crossed role plays where each person defends the position of another department
  • Case studies from industry and distribution: a line stoppage, a customer dispute, a supply delay
  • Ideally a session made up of participants from several departments, to work on their shared interfaces

Assessment and documents

Knowledge test at the end of the day, post-training evaluation at D+1. Numbered training certificate, verifiable online, for each participant; the company receives the training report and the working agreements written in the workshop.

Bilingual materials for every participant; each classroom course comes with its digital twin on OmniLearn.

Frequently asked questions

Should several departments be brought together in the same session?

It is preferable. A session organised in your company bringing together, for example, production, maintenance, quality and logistics lets you work on the real interfaces and leave with agreements validated by both sides.

How is this different from “Managing Conflict and Disagreement”?

The conflict course deals with tensions between people. This one deals with friction that comes from the organisation: objectives, flows and responsibilities poorly defined between departments. The two complement each other.

Does the course replace a process approach?

No, but it prepares one. It brings out the frictions and the working rules people expect; formalising them in your procedures is then done with the process owners.

Practical information

Duration
1 day
Audience
Managers, department heads, project leaders, support functions (quality, maintenance, logistics, purchasing)
Prerequisites
No prerequisites
Group size
Groups of 6 to 12 participants, in-company
Format
In-company, face to face on your site
Language
French, Darija or English; bilingual materials
Funding
OFPPT special training contracts (TFP), GIAC, Maroc PME: we prepare the applications with you, at no extra cost.
Programme customisation
Programme adapted to your procedures, your equipment and your audience

Organise this course

Price and dates on quote, depending on your headcount, your site and your preferred period.

Request a quoteDownload the PDF sheetCall +212 661 863 618

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Train your teams on your own site

Book a call with a consultant or request an in-company session: we adapt the programme to your procedures and your audience.

Or call us on ⁦+212 661 863 618⁩

contact@afflatusconsulting.com