703 Collaboration and Partnerships

Unit Overview

703 Collaboration and Partnerships is a unit within the CMI Level 7 module that builds the ability of other leaders to develop partners who support the organisation's activities. The leaders, especially those in senior management, act as representatives of the organisation in different engagements. It is important that these leaders have an understanding of the principles that should be implemented to guide the development of the desired partnerships that contribute towards the success of the organisation.

Collaborations and partnerships are important when the organisation needs support in various elements to ensure that it succeeds within the competitive markets. It helps the parties involved in the partnerships to achieve a win-win situation that benefits both companies. It is important for strategic leaders to understand the different types of partnerships that they can enter and the principles that guide the specific partnerships that they choose for their specific organisation. They are also taught to ensure that their choices are aligned with the goals and objectives of their organisation and have the interest of the organisation.

703 Collaboration and Partnerships is a unit that is designed to ensure that the leaders, both practising and potential, are provided with relevant training to support their decision in relation to collaborations and partnerships. The unit provides these leaders with training on the relevant skills and techniques that they should use in entering into these partnerships and collaborations. It also helps them to understand the impact of the organisation's culture and the legal environment on these processes, ensuring that they can effectively justify the collaborations and provide support to others within the workplace in the process of pursuing the partnerships.

Suitability of the Unit

Leaders must understand the role of collaborative and partnership arrangements within their organisational context. They must understand the scope and value of these engagements as well as the impact that the legal frameworks and organisational requirements have on the process of developing these arrangements. After evaluating the significance of these approaches within the organisation, it is important to ensure that the partnerships and collaborative engagements focus on the interests of the organisation hence ensuring that it contributes towards meeting the goals and objectives of their organisations.

These aspects require the leader to understand the different principles and procedures of partnerships and engagements. CMI Unit 703 Collaboration and Partnerships is a unit that helps the leader so understand the process of developing the required standards of partnerships and collaborations that contribute towards achieving success within their organisations. The unit is, therefore, significantly suitable to the leaders within the workplace, especially those that are required to make strategic decisions within the organisation.

The unit is designed to meet the learning needs of the senior leaders at the strategic level of management within the workplace. The unit contributes towards helping these senior leaders, such as directors and CEOs, to develop a standard of understanding partnerships and collaborative working that ensures the impact that these arrangements have on their organisations is positive and contributes towards success within their organisations. The unit can also be pursued by middle managers being prepared for senior management roles. External consultants who provide support at the strategic levels of the organisation need to have an understanding of the critical contents of this unit to ensure that the support to decision-making that they provide is relevant and effective in the organisational context.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Assess the scope and value of collaboration and partnerships within their organisations and how it contributes to supporting the achievement of the strategic objectives

• Understand the impact of organisational and legal requirements that are related to the process of developing partnerships and collaboration

• Evaluate the strategies and principles that can be sued in the process of making collaborations and partnerships successful for both parties involved in the arrangements

• Provide a rationale that can be used in developing collaborative relationships and partnerships to further improve organisational success

Key Learning Areas

CMI Unit 703 Collaboration and Partnerships is a unit that focuses on addressing the need to acquire the capabilities and skills to effectively manage partnerships and collaborations. The unit provides the leaders with an understanding of critical principles that they can use in partnership and collaborative engagements. The main areas of learning covered include:

Role of Collaboration and Partnerships

This area of learning helps to understand the principles of collaboration and partnerships within the workplace. it involves being able to effectively understand how the collaborative and partnership arrangements contribute towards meeting the goals and objectives of the organisation as well as the main factors that may impact the ability of the organisation to achieve its goals and objectives. This area of learning helps the learners to understand different elements that could be included within the organisational activities in the workplace to improve the efficiency of collaborative and partnership arrangements.

Impact of Collaboration and Partnerships on Organisational Success

This area of learning helps the leaders to understand the approaches to evaluating the collaborative and partnership engagements to ensure that they add value to the organisational activities. The leaders must ensure that in their engagements, they promote the interest of the organisation.

As such, this area helps them to understand the approaches of appraising the strategies and principles of collaboration and partnerships using tools such as cost-benefit analysis and negotiation capabilities to ensure they contribute towards improving efficiencies or performance within their organisations. The area of learning also helps to understand the optimum approach to using collaborative relationship and partnerships to advance the interests of the organisation.

Evaluation

Upon completion of the unit, the learner should complete an assessment to determine the mastery of the content that has been learned within the unit. A written assessment is one of the main approaches that can be used to achieve the expected learning goals and objectives. The assessors can use other approaches, such as supervised practice and simulated exercises, to determine the ability to apply the concepts in an organisational setting.