Empowering Team Champions: Enhancing Collaboration in Multidisciplinary Teams

In the complex world of engineering and product management, navigating multiple work streams with their unique challenges and priorities is common. We often grapple with questions about project status, insights, and accountability.

Balancing security, growth features, and smaller tasks can be complex. When everyone jumps into simultaneous projects, it can lead to communication issues and unclear responsibilities.

Despite the crucial role played by tech lead, delivery, and product managers in addition to a well organised JIRA board, stand ups and planning in shaping the overall project roadmap, gaining clarity on development progress can be challenging when immersed in the intricacies of engineering work. This is true both within the team, and when the team needs to communicate progress to other teams and stakeholders. To address these challenges, we’ve adopted the concept of a “team champion” after successful trials in our Content Discovery team, extending it to all projects based on team feedback.

What is a team champion?
A champion is an engineer in the team, who serves as the public face for a particular project, handling inquiries while understanding project progress and requirements.

Champions act as the point of contact for different teams, investigate project matters, and actively participate in related meetings. Their role also involves leading work streams, reporting progress, escalating risks, and prioritising tasks to ensure the project’s success.

Being a champion can significantly contribute to an engineer’s personal development by fostering the enhancement of softer skills like communication and project management. Additionally, it offers engineers the opportunity to take the lead in areas where they may not be as familiar, working with more senior and experienced engineers and collaborating with other teams to share information thus promoting a broader skill set and professional growth.

Championing the Champion Role
Our team’s experience of the champion role has had positive feedback; 100% of the team wanted to continue with the champion role in the future. Here’s what our team liked and what we learned:

• Personal Ownership: Champions take ownership of a project, and this sense of responsibility can be personally rewarding, helping individuals discover new skills and capabilities.
• Clear Communication: Effective communication and well-defined responsibilities are essential when nominating champions. It ensures that everyone understands their role and what’s expected within the project swimlane.
• Flexibility: It’s important to have a backup plan, allowing others to step in for champions when necessary. This flexibility ensures continuity and avoids bottlenecks.
• Rotation of Champions: Rotating champions within a swimlane can be a beneficial approach. It not only shares the responsibility but also brings fresh perspectives to the role.

Champion Role in Action: Camille’s Story
Camille, one of the newest engineers in our team, exemplified this as the champion of a personalisation project. Despite her being one of the newest engineers on the team, she led with remarkable efficiency and a personal touch, becoming the central communication point for the team and me, the product manager. This shift improved project tracking and information flow, meaning that instead of relying solely on the tech lead or attempting to gather information from the entire team (often resulting in redundant or missed communications), we had a clear and efficient line of communication through Camille.

In the project’s critical final weeks, Camille’s confidence and initiative shone. She created a user-friendly testing guide (infused with her personality), simplifying the QA process for both engineering and partners was my go-to for updates and feedback. Her leadership was crucial, yet when it came time to celebrate the project’s near-on-time completion, Camille would only share the credit with the team.

Camille’s story illustrates the real-world value of the champion role. Her leadership, effective communication, and team spirit highlight how champions can transform project dynamics, emphasising the role’s significance beyond theory. In Camille’s own words; “It made me do things I didn’t know I could.”