Live instructor-led | Classroom & Live Online Available  |  View Dates & Options →
Women at Work  ·  WAW-18

Women in Operations and Process Improvement

View Dates & Options
Live instructor-led  |  Private cohorts available  |  Group booking options available

Operational leadership means making work easier to see, problems easier to diagnose, and improvement easier to sustain.

Explanatory business visual for Course

Course Overview

This program is for women leading operations, service delivery, shared services, process teams, customer operations, administration, or continuous-improvement work. It builds the practical capability to diagnose process problems, improve handoffs, set operational measures and lead disciplined improvement with frontline and cross-functional teams.

Participants work on real processes from their organizations and use simple visual tools to identify bottlenecks, failure demand, role confusion, wasted effort and control gaps.

Organizations can use the program within operations academies, women-in-leadership initiatives, shared-service development, quality programs, process-excellence pathways or supervisor-to-manager progression.

B2B course snapshot

Where this program fits

Live, instructor-led and adaptable to organizational context
Best fit
Women operations managers, process owners, service-delivery leaders and continuous-improvement professionals
Delivery
Live classroom, live online, or private in-house delivery. Depth and schedule are tailored to the cohort.
Built around
Process visibility, problem diagnosis, operational measures, improvement, risk and cross-functional execution
Take back to work
A mapped process, prioritized improvement opportunity and implementation plan

Built for Corporate Cohorts, Not Just Individual Attendance

For private delivery, the program can be aligned to the sponsor’s capability goals, participant roles, internal frameworks, business priorities, and real workplace scenarios. HR, L&D, Talent, functional leaders, and transformation teams can use the course as a standalone intervention or as one component of a wider women-in-leadership, manager-development, succession, or functional-capability pathway.

How We Make This Relevant to Your Organization

Before a private cohort, the sponsor can define the target population, business context, capability gaps, priority scenarios, internal language, and desired work products. Examples, exercises, discussion and action planning can then be calibrated around that context without inventing outcomes or forcing a generic program structure.

What Female-Forward Means in This Program

The program strengthens visible operational authority and decision-making in environments where leaders must combine people, process and performance responsibility.

What Participants Will Learn

See the process clearly
Map work, handoffs, delays and ownership.
Diagnose root causes
Separate recurring system issues from isolated incidents.
Choose useful measures
Track flow, quality, service and control rather than activity alone.
Lead improvement with teams
Create participation while keeping accountability clear.
Manage operational risk
Identify control gaps, failure points and escalation needs.
Sustain changes
Build ownership, follow-up and standard work after improvement.
Capability journey

From insight to workplace application

The sequence is adapted to the cohort and delivery context while keeping the emphasis on real organizational work.

01

See the work

02

Find the constraint

03

Improve the system

04

Sustain the gain

Course Outline

The modules below provide the core pathway. The sequence, depth and examples can be adjusted for public, private, live-online or in-house delivery.

Module 1: Operational Leadership Fundamentals

Clarify what good operating control looks like.

  • Flow and ownership
  • Service standards
  • Visible management
  • Escalation discipline
Module 2: Process Mapping and Bottlenecks

Make work visible end to end.

  • Process boundaries
  • Handoffs
  • Queues and delays
  • Role ambiguity
Module 3: Problem Solving and Root Cause

Move beyond quick fixes.

  • Problem definition
  • Evidence
  • Cause analysis
  • Countermeasures
Module 4: Operational Measures and Controls

Choose measures that drive action.

  • Flow measures
  • Quality measures
  • Service measures
  • Control points
Module 5: Leading Improvement

Mobilize teams around better work.

  • Improvement priorities
  • Frontline involvement
  • Change adoption
  • Standard work
Module 6: Operations Improvement Action Plan

Apply the tools to a live process.

  • Current state
  • Priority issue
  • Improvement design
  • Implementation ownership

Who Should Attend

  • Women operations managers and supervisors
  • Process owners and service-delivery leaders
  • Shared-services and customer-operations professionals
  • Organizations developing women in operational leadership

Organizational Benefits

For employers using this as a private cohort or capability pathway, the program is designed to help the organization:

  • Strengthen operational management capability
  • Build a pipeline of women for operations leadership
  • Improve process visibility and problem-solving discipline
  • Create common improvement tools across teams
  • Connect leadership development to measurable operational work
Work products

Participants leave with tools that can be used at work

Current-state process map
Bottleneck analysis
Operational measures scorecard
Improvement prioritization matrix
Implementation action plan

B2B Deployment Options

Private Cohort

A dedicated cohort aligned to one organization, function or population.

Leadership Pathway

Combine with other Women at Work programs to build a structured development journey.

Functional Academy

Use the course within a role-specific or function-specific capability academy.

Multi-Location Cohort

Live-online or blended scheduling can support geographically distributed teams.

Delivery Format

The program is live and instructor-led. It can be delivered in a classroom, live online, or in-house. Duration is not fixed: the schedule and depth should reflect the participant level, organizational objective, chosen modules, and amount of applied practice required.

For HR, L&D and business leaders: Explore in-house training or request a customized cohort.

Business Problems This Program Is Designed to Address

This course is designed around workplace problems that organizations can observe in real roles. The aim is to give participants a structured way to diagnose situations, make stronger decisions, practise difficult conversations and return to work with tools that can be used immediately.

Operational problems repeat because teams fix symptomsParticipants learn to define the problem, trace flow and identify root causes before choosing countermeasures.
Handoffs hide ownershipCross-functional processes often fail between teams rather than inside them. The program makes roles, queues, dependencies and escalation points visible.
Teams measure activity rather than performanceParticipants choose measures for flow, quality, service and control so managers can see whether an intervention is actually improving the operation.
Improvements fade after launchThe course builds ownership, standard work, review cadence and follow-up into the improvement design so gains are less dependent on individual enthusiasm.

Applied Practice and Scenario Work

The learning design uses realistic management situations rather than abstract discussion alone. Private cohorts can calibrate the scenarios to the participant population, industry and operating context.

A service process has rising delays but no obvious bottleneckParticipants map the end-to-end flow, compare queue points and identify where work actually accumulates.
Two departments blame each other for recurring errorsParticipants separate process design, role clarity, information quality and control issues before recommending a solution.
A manager wants to automate a broken processParticipants assess whether technology will remove work, accelerate waste or simply hide the current problem.
An improvement worked briefly and then performance slippedParticipants diagnose reinforcement, ownership, measures and standard-work gaps.

Application principle: participants should leave each major topic able to explain what they would do differently in a real role, which stakeholders they would involve, what evidence they would use and how they would know whether the action worked.

For HR, L&D and Program Sponsors

Women in Operations and Process Improvement can be delivered as a standalone private cohort or embedded inside a broader capability pathway. The sponsor can define the target population, role level, business context, expected behaviours, priority scenarios and work products before delivery.

A stronger deployment does more than count attendance. Participants can apply one tool to live work, discuss the result with their manager and bring the learning into an existing talent, performance, project or functional review. This connects development to execution without making unsupported ROI promises.

  • Before the cohort: define the capability gap and participant profile.
  • During delivery: use role-relevant scenarios, practice and work products.
  • After delivery: reinforce application through manager conversations, peer review or sponsor follow-up.
  • At pathway level: combine this program with adjacent courses where participants need broader capability.

Pricing

The public-course fee below follows the current Women at Work offering structure for Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Program length and structure can vary by cohort and delivery context. Public fees exclude VAT or other applicable taxes.

$4,500
Per delegate
Individual booking
$3,825
Per delegate
3 delegates (15% off)
$3,750
Per delegate
6 delegates (pay for 5)
For in-house or customized delivery, request a proposal.

How This Fits Into a Wider Development Pathway

For corporate cohorts, the tools and action plans from this program can feed into development plans, talent reviews, project reviews, functional academies or sponsor debriefs. The course can also be paired with adjacent programs so the learning journey reflects the capability the organization is actually trying to build.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we use our own organizational scenarios?

Yes. Private cohorts can be calibrated around your operating context, role levels and common workplace situations while protecting sensitive information.

How should managers support participants after the course?

Agree one or two work applications, then review what the participant tried, what changed and what further support is needed.

Can this be combined with other Women at Work courses?

Yes. It can sit inside a multi-course pathway for managers, high-potential women, functional leaders or another defined population.

Part of the Women at Work pathway. Explore the full Women at Work professional development pathway.
Can this be delivered only for our organization?

Yes. Private and in-house cohorts can be tailored around your participant profile, business context, capability priorities and internal terminology.

Is the duration fixed?

No. The delivery schedule is adapted to the cohort, selected depth, practice requirements and organizational objective.

Can this sit inside a wider women development pathway?

Yes. The program can be combined with leadership, management, communication, AI, commercial, project or functional capability courses from the Women at Work collection.

How Participants Work During the Program

Women in Operations and Process Improvement is designed as an applied learning experience rather than a sequence of lectures. Participants move repeatedly between concept, diagnosis, practice and workplace application. The exact balance can be adjusted for the cohort, but the learning design should keep participants working with decisions and situations that resemble the responsibilities they actually hold.

1. Diagnose

Participants begin by defining the real problem, decision or capability gap rather than accepting the first description at face value.

2. Practise

They test language, analysis, tools or decision approaches in a low-risk setting and receive challenge from the facilitator and peers.

3. Build

Participants create a work product linked to their role rather than leaving with notes alone. Relevant outputs can include A mapped process, prioritized improvement opportunity and implementation plan, Current-state process map, Bottleneck analysis, Operational measures scorecard, Improvement prioritization matrix.

4. Challenge

Assumptions, blind spots and trade-offs are surfaced through peer review, facilitator questions and comparison with alternative approaches.

5. Apply

Each participant identifies where the learning will be used, who needs to be involved, what action happens first and what evidence will show progress.

The core pathway covers Operational Leadership Fundamentals, Process Mapping and Bottlenecks, Problem Solving and Root Cause, Operational Measures and Controls, Leading Improvement, Operations Improvement Action Plan. For private cohorts, examples and practice can be weighted toward the modules most relevant to the sponsor’s capability priorities without reducing the integrity of the wider program.

Manager Reinforcement and Evidence of Application

A course becomes more valuable when participants have a clear opportunity to use the learning after delivery. For employer-sponsored cohorts, TheSkillGrid can design the program so managers and sponsors know what participants are expected to practise without turning development into unnecessary administration.

  • Before delivery: the participant and manager can identify one current situation where the course is likely to be useful. This gives the learning an immediate workplace anchor.
  • Immediately after delivery: the participant selects one or two tools or behaviours to use first, rather than trying to apply every concept simultaneously.
  • During the following work cycle: the manager can ask what was tried, what response it produced, what became clearer and what still needs adjustment.
  • At sponsor level: patterns across the cohort can inform future learning priorities, manager support or pathway design without claiming that attendance alone caused a business result.

What Good Application Can Look Like

Evidence of application should be appropriate to the topic and role. Useful signs include clearer decisions, better-prepared stakeholder conversations, stronger use of a practical tool, improved escalation, more explicit trade-offs, better role clarity, or a work product that is being used in a real process. These are observable behaviours and outputs, not guaranteed performance claims.


Related Programs

Related programs in TheSkillGrid’s wider capability architecture include:

Build the Right Development Pathway

TheSkillGrid can combine this course with adjacent programs into a coherent private cohort or development pathway.

Discuss a Cohort

Upcoming Dates & Venues

No sessions currently scheduled.
Request course availability with your preferred date, location and group size. We will confirm available public-session and private-team options before any booking or payment.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Register your interest for a public session or request private in-house delivery for your team.