How to build and manage cross-functional teams for better outcomes
As a product professional I’ve had the opportunity over the years to be a member of or leader of cross functional teams. These teams tackled a wide array of issues, typically in project or time-bound committee formats. The matrix organizational structure and cross departmental collaboration through the lifecycle of selling and supporting products and services make cross functional teams a natural occurrence in many modern organizations.
The project management methodologies and how stringently they are followed, the role of project sponsors and their degree of influence, the existence of a Project Management Office (PMO) and other factors shape the project management experience in an organization. The cross-functional teams I have been a member of typically followed a gated process, whether loosely defined or on the stricter side of the spectrum. Of course no two organizations are the same. So while your mileage may vary, this is written based on extensive experience in initiatives such as development and commercialization of new products, planning and execution of go-to-market (GTM) campaigns and the investigation into or implementation of process improvements in various areas of operations and customer service.
In this post and the one that will follow I will give you my recommendations on how to get better outcomes from cross functional teams. These insights are from the perspective of a project sponsor and key contributor on such teams, not a project manager. In this post I will cover team creation, including items such as the composition of teams, establishing the project mandate and more.
Building the cross-functional team
The formation of successful teams is one of the most critical and elusive challenges that modern organizations face. This is despite many advances in areas of management such as project, human resources and business in general.
This post was inspired from conversations I have had with the folks at TeamFit, a company that has dedicated itself to tackling the challenge of creating and managing teams for better project outcomes.
Seek a blend of skills, experience and perspectives
By assembling cross functional teams, organizations are trying to assign complex tasks to a collection of professionals with the right blend of skills and domain expertise. But skills and experience directly related to the tasks isn’t where it ends, perspectives matter too. Ensuring that the team encompasses a balanced breadth of perspectives from various functions of the business is critical to initiatives that span the organization. While not a prime design consideration for building project teams, diversity of both age groups and cultures can offer beneficial insights into potential challenges and opportunities, particularly in initiatives with customer experience (marketing, sales, service etc.) implications.
Establish the right team size
A project supported by a small team, even one that is easier to manage and has the necessary skills, experience and perspectives may take longer to produce results. A larger team provides more flexibility to allocate responsibilities and assign tasks, but presents the risks of inefficient communication, coordination challenges and declining engagement. Additional on ways to enable efficient collaboration and improve ongoing management of cross functional teams will be covered in the second post of the series.
Understand and communicate expected levels of commitment
Even before the team is formed and as a project manager is being allocated (or assigned) to the initiative, the project sponsor should work with the project “champions” (key representatives from the business unit leading the initiative) and start identifying the skills, areas of expertise and the amount of resourcing required. Some resources will need to be allocated on a full time basis and make part of the project’s “core team”. Others will be involved on a part time basis due to other project or day-to-day responsibilities but will be expected to contribute to the initiative at varying levels. Some resources will only need to contribute at later stages of the project but timely involvement even in a monitoring capacity (with occasional input) should be beneficial to the effort.
Clarify responsibilities
Whether team members are allocated to the project full time or part time, are employees, contractors or even supplier representatives, it is critical to establish clarity on everyone’s responsibilities in the project and towards their peers. Such serves as the necessary foundation for accountability throughout the duration of the project. The responsibilities may evolve throughout the duration of the project strengthening the case for clearly capturing and communicated the for everyone to see. One tool that facilitates such clarity, despite the time and effort to produce it, is the RASCI model. Paraphrasing the old quote, it’s about the journey, not the destination — the process of negotiating responsibilities with the various stakeholders is a great way to uncover potential gaps and challenges.
Strive for continuity
One of the more challenging situations I’ve encountered over the years in projects that spanned extended periods of time have been when team members were “pulled” from the project and reassigned by their functional group to other initiatives (whether these were more strategic or distressed). Such departures result in lost knowledge and are detrimental to some intangible project achievements such as team alignment, trust and camaraderie. Such occurrences may be more prevalent in organizations where the skills or expertise of certain team members, let’s refer to them as “experts”, are scarce and thus highly desirable. One proactive way to address this issue is to apply some redundancy for the skill by including additional team members to “shadow” or support the expert. This approach can provide team members with a growth and learning opportunity to further their career in the organization but it also adds cost and may diminish the accountability sought. Another recommended course of action is to set the expectation with the functional group supplying the expert that it is its responsibility to address these situations. Such should incorporate not only backfilling the project role with another team member but also by ensuring a smooth and effective transition to the new team member.
Establish a shared charter and objectives
Unless it’s a secret initiative (or project), a definition of the situation, the project’s key objectives and its initial timeline would already be established at some level even before funding is secured and resourcing beyond the first core team members takes place. As compelling the current definitions or commitments are, these should still have flexibility to incorporate team member input while the cross-functional team is being formalized towards the project kickoff. Understanding the different motivations of project contributors, incorporating ideas contributed by the team and aligning everyone on the project charter and common objectives are key to both establishing trust and setting an important foundation for engagement.
In the next part of this series we will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities in the ongoing management of projects. We will also review the importance of executive visibility and consider areas to improve it such that overall project health, risks and progress are proactively managed.
Originally published on the Objective Innovation blog (www.objectiveinnovation.com) on July 14, 2016.
