Cross-Functional Teams Definition
A cross-functional team, in simpler words, is a team of individuals with different functional experiences but working toward the same goal or objective.
Is your organization also following that old-school hierarchical structure– one with a top-down approach to management? If you said YES, it is high time for you to try a cross-functional team structure at least once!
Let’s dive in and explore everything about cross-functional teams and how it can benefit your organization in the long run!
Here, we will discover:
Understanding Cross-Functional Teams Meaning!
Cross-functional teams, also termed multi-disciplinary terms or interdisciplinary teams, are groups of individuals from different departments of a company. This means that people from the marketing team, product management department, sales and finance department come together to obtain one single goal.
Companies mostly design cross-functional teams to complete a particular project or meet an urgent deadline. A cross-functional team holds so much importance– let’s learn the same in the next section!
Importance of Cross-Functional Teams
Imagine a customer got in touch with one of your departments with a simple question and the call got transferred from one department to another. The matter that could have been resolved in just a minute took almost 15-20 minutes instead. This usually happens in a company that follows a silo structure.
Now guess the result of this? Obviously, losing the opportunity to develop lasting relationships.
This is when cross-functional teams come into the picture!
For the uninitiated, uniting all the departments with different expertise can enhance and speed up the problem-solving process. Additionally, cross-functional teams can also result in smarter and more reliable decision-making.
Creating cross-functional teams can help you save money, time and a lot of effort, while enhancing the overall customer engagement and helping you to meet predefined goals effortlessly.
Challenges of Cross-Functional Teams
Here are some common challenges companies usually face while adopting cross-functional teams:
Change Adoption by Teams
As you already know by now cross-functional teams bring people from different departments together. These people may have a clear idea of the department they were in before and the duties they carried out. However, they can face certain issues and miss out on the vision of the big picture while shifting to a whole new team with new members with different expertise.
Misalignment of Goals
Let’s understand this point with a simple example.
We all know that the primary job of a marketing team is to acquire more leads. Now, when the marketing team works with this metric in mind, the sales department may complain that most of their leads are junk. This certainly happens because different team members focus on different metrics.
So, bringing everyone on the same page while aligning their goals for the common good can be a task in itself.
Geographical Issues
This challenge is usually faced by companies operating in different locations or on different floors. In such a scenario, managers find it difficult to keep everyone informed and follow up on updates. To resolve this very challenge, businesses are adopting technologies like HR software that help businesses keep their people united irrespective of their location.
Ineffective Collaboration
You will need to pick a good and smooth communication channel before forming a cross-functional team. Additionally, you can face this challenge if you fail to decide the agenda of the meeting and convey it to everyone.
Progress Tracking
When you create a cross-functional team, you will notice that some people will be struggling to fulfil their responsibilities. Some people, on the other hand, will not be willing to support others as they are paying attention to their own metrics. Also, everyone will be using different spreadsheets to track their goals. As a result, you will face issues while tracking the overall progress.
How to Create an Effective Cross-Functional Team?
Here is how you can pull off an effective cross-functional team:
Make Sure Diversity
When it comes to cross-functional teams, diversity is a must. By diversity, we mean diversity of point-of-view, gender, age and more. A group with diverse individuals helps you to meet the company goals more effectively.
Include Strong People
The team should also have some strong-minded and top-performing employees. These people will act like pillars of the team who will influence and guide others in the right direction.
Set Clear Goals
We already talked about this before. You should always set goals with a particular deadline beforehand and discuss the same with the team members. This will help your team to perform well along the way.
Reinforce Authority
Just forming a team is not enough. If you want them to put their best selves forward, you will have to make them feel considered and respected. You can do this by establishing their authority in a particular project. This will increase transparency and help you track the engagement and productivity throughout.
Facilitate Conflict Resolution
With different people with different opinions coming together, there will always be room for conflicts. To avoid such conflicts, all you need to do is arrange conflict resolution training for everyone and provide them with opportunities to collaborate on a personal level.
There you go!
Now that you know everything about cross-functional teams and their multiple benefits, take a step ahead and embrace this structure in your organization.