Sometimes, one team just isn’t enough.
So what happens when multiple teams that perform different functions need to work together?
Well, usually, they’ll have a couple of meetings — only for each team to work on their own anyway.
Collaboration doesn’t always come naturally. It needs to be facilitated and nurtured by the project manager in charge.
So what does that look like? And why would you even need different teams to collaborate? Let’s dive in and find out.
Table of Contents
What is cross-functional collaboration?
Cross-functional collaboration is the process of teams with different skill sets, expertise, and functions working together.
This type of collaboration can be implemented, but it can also happen naturally. For example, a sales manager may ask for new feature updates from devs so that they can update their pitches.
Many project goals also require cross-functional collaboration. Think of, for instance, creating a website. From the get-go, you need developers and designers working together, not to mention content, SEO, or any other teams that might be needed.
But fulfilling your project goals isn’t the only way you can benefit from cross-functional collaboration.
Top 4 cross-functional collaboration benefits
No one can argue against collaboration — we all just take for granted that it’s beneficial. And it is!
But it’s worthwhile to highlight the benefits, so here are some of the most important ones:
- Team engagement — Cross-functional work introduces a change in what might otherwise be monotonous work. With new challenges and new conversations to strike up, your teams will rely on each other and be more involved in their shared goals.
- Knowledge sharing — Working with different teams will give everyone better insight into what their role is and how they fit into the big picture. Team members like this are beyond valuable.
- Improved innovation — You know when you have an idea, and you need “another set of eyes”? This type of collaboration gives your teams full-time access to exactly that. With different mindsets coming from different fields, your teams will be able to look at a problem from every angle and come up with the best (and most creative) solutions.
- Refined workflows — When a team member isn’t limited by the team they’re in, you can find tasks for them that perfectly match their skills. As knowledge is shared, team members’ skills expand, allowing them to fill in the blanks for the other teams whenever it’s necessary.
The most common cross-functional collaboration challenges
And yet — connecting teams that have never worked together before comes with its own share of hiccups. It’s good to stay aware of the various types of project risks, so we’ve compiled some issues you might expect to run into and a few ideas on how you could solve them.
Fixing communication issues
While communication is important for collaboration, poor communication can hinder it.
People who work in different departments are just not used to communicating with each other. So, it’s your job to be assertive in getting your teams to communicate.
Set up meetings, or remind them to notify each other of important progress. Odds are that your teams do want to collaborate — they just haven’t had to do it before.
Dealing with information silos
Keep in mind that all these different teams also have different habits of sharing information. So, when you’re trying to get them to work together, failing to address this means they’ll probably end up working in silos.
If information isn’t shared between teams, they can’t effectively collaborate — even if the teams do great work on their own. In this case, two rights can still frustratingly make a wrong.
What you need to do to solve this is centralize information sharing. Have one platform for teams to share updates, and let it be accessible to everyone — not just the team in question.
Overcoming a lack of trust
Working on a project where quality results are expected of you is stressful enough. Suddenly working with a bunch of people you don’t know — the stress can really get to you.
This boiling point leads to a lack of trust between teams. It can easily lead to conflict — by blaming others if quality is not met — and, again, silos — as a means of avoiding the before-mentioned stress.
Because these high-stakes, high-expectations situations can lead to such issues, start with something smaller. Have the teams work together on some smaller tasks and build their trust over time. Only after they’re used to working together should you hand them a real challenge.
Getting over the resistance to change
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it — right? This is how most of your teams probably think about your current strategies, so any change can be difficult for them to approve of.
Team members with resistance to change can slow down your acclimation process, and lead to all of the issues mentioned so far.
The solution, however, is also similar to the previously mentioned ones — make the change gradual and take it one step at a time.
What’s more, remember to listen to your teams. If there’s an aspect of the change they don’t like, it might be for good reason. It’s on you to look into it and refine your strategies. Trust us — they’ll be sure to appreciate it.
How to implement cross-functional collaboration
We know that skills are too unmeasurable. Indeed, having someone tell you to “just communicate better” can feel frustrating.
So, let’s keep those skills in mind but talk about some more actionable steps you can take toward successful cross-functional collaboration.
Create a collaboration plan
Firstly, you need to clearly define exactly why you need the teams in question to collaborate.
Then, use that information to set up goals — for example, “The marketing team collaborated with the dev team to create a successful campaign.”
Now, choose how they’ll collaborate, and make that very clear. Whether it’s setting up meetings, or having them talk in a group chat, make sure you let them know.
Be assertive — lead by example, and emphasize the importance of using these platforms to communicate.
And, like always, your work doesn’t end ‘till the project ends. So, keep monitoring communication, and work out kinks as they appear.
Automate repetitive tasks
There’s nothing more frustrating — or isolating — than repetitive tasks. They’re the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve — a seamless flow of creativity, easy collaboration across different teams, and quick progress updates.
Repetitive tasks can feel like you’re stuck in time, with no progress or change being made. So, what’s the solution?
Get rid of them!
Use the modern tools available to automate repetitive tasks as much as you can, and reduce your team members’ suffering.
This will open up the road for them to collaborate on things that actually matter.
Establish clear goals
Speaking of things that actually matter — let’s talk about your project goals.
From the beginning of a project, as a manager, you’ll know what you’re working toward.
It’s easy to forget that you’re the only one who knows this — but even worse, it’s easy to not want to overburden your team with such information.
However, team members can only benefit from knowing project goals. If they know what the end goal of their work is, they can coordinate tasks to reach that goal.
💡Plaky Pro Tip
There’s a great method to establishing clear goals — making them S.M.A.R.T. You can learn all about it in this article:
Practice transparent communication
How do you actually improve communication?
One thing you can always work on is making your communication more transparent.
This essentially means — always focus on the why. Why are we doing this project? Why do I have to report to 2 supervisors? Why do I have to work with Toby?
You need to help your team understand the thought process behind the decisions you make. A greater level of transparency will give them more peace of mind as far as the project’s performance goes. Plus, it will make it easier for them to champion those decisions.
Use a project management tool
With plenty of teams working remotely in recent times, collaboration is becoming more and more difficult.
But, one solution that always does the trick is using project management software.
When creating a collaboration plan, you can set up a PM tool of choice for your teams to use. There, they can share updates about their work, talk to each other on specific tasks, and make sure that no one is isolated.
And the best part? This kind of tool gives information access to everyone, so by its nature, project management software fosters collaboration.
Whether it’s to automate repetitive tasks or establish transparent communication over assigned tasks, using a PM tool will be the most important factor in improving cross-functional collaboration in your organization.
The skills you need to lead a cross-functional team
Leading a cross-functional team isn’t easy — you have to navigate through different viewpoints and work habits from different team functions.
Do you think you have the chops for it? All it takes is the right skill set.
We’ve talked with professionals who’ve led cross-functional teams before to see which skills they believe are the most important. Here’s what they had to say.
Open communication
Totally saw this one coming, didn’t you?
Almost every expert we spoke to listed communication as the #1 skill for a cross-functional team manager.
Everyone had a great take on the importance of communication, but Jacob Kalvo, a seasoned entrepreneur and investor, put it best:
“[Effective communication] is an important quality to have in a team with diverse backgrounds like marketing, development, or cybersecurity — how well one puts across complex ideas coherently and ensures everyone is on the same page.”
As mentioned, people with different professional backgrounds may have different perspectives. This can come with its fair share of challenges, but improving communication will always prove beneficial.
“Communication not only aligns the team toward a common goal but also provides for an open environment where ideas can freely flow. This enables quick fixing of problems and diffusion of possible conflicts due to differences in expertise or perspective. Even the best of teams face difficulties in attaining objectives without strong communication.”
In a nutshell, if you maintain a culture of open communication, your teams will be able to efficiently deal with any issue that arises. Ultimately, proper communication is the key tool in a cross-functional team manager’s skill set.
Understanding of technical skills
Say you walk up to your designer, and ask them how a task is going. They reply: “I’m stuck, I need to find a way to counterbalance the negative space.”
What?
Knowing some technical skills that your team works with is essential, according to Dennis Lenard, who’s been running projects for more than 15 years.
“I prioritize technical skills because they allow me to understand the day-to-day of team members and the spectrum of possibilities within which they operate. As a cross-functional team lead, you have to handle trade-offs, which means putting certain team members in more challenging positions at times.”
A trade-off is, essentially, a compromise. When you have 2 opposing sides in a situation and need to strike a balance, you can make a trade-off.
But, you need to fully know what your team’s work looks like — otherwise, you run the risk of those trade-offs being unfair toward your teams. You might try to strike a compromise, only to give one side way more work — which may cause more harm than good.
“This leads to employee disengagement or makes them turn to questionable practices, creating conflict among co-workers. On the other hand, if people feel understood and deem your decisions to be fair, they will strive to support the team as a whole.”
Vision casting
While you go about your day-to-day tasks at work, how often do you think about your project’s mission or vision?
Me neither.
This is exactly what Chris Gleason, who’s been working in real estate finance for over 12 years, warned us about.
“Most people are better at completing tasks than they are at understanding the bigger picture that the tasks that they complete are a part of. Of course, that’s true even when there’s only one function or discipline that those tasks belong to.”
If team members aren’t aware of what they’re working toward, their quality of work will drop. Their results might be technically fantastic — but they may not have a place to fit in your project.
“In a cross-functional environment, there’s more to understand and grasp. When team members aren’t able to understand or see why it’s necessary to be cross-functional, they can get frustrated. They’ll naturally prefer one function over the other, so it’s critical to cast vision and highlight the importance of the cross-functionality so that they don’t naturally deemphasize one function or another simply because they don’t enjoy it, don’t think it’s important, or don’t understand its utility.”
It’s a separate facet of communication to be able to make your team understand why you’re doing the work in your project.
Acclimation is difficult, especially when you don’t realize it’s needed. But, just keep showing the meaning behind your decisions to your teams — they’re bound to be more supportive.
Active listening
Okay, so you now know that you need to hone your technical skills, improve communication, and impart your ideas more clearly.
But, there’s one missing aspect in leading a cross-functional team — making your team feel heard.
This is exactly what Vasilii Kiselev, a skilled and experienced executive, brought to our attention.
“Picture this scenario — we’re deeply engrossed in developing a learning platform. The developers are discussing code, educators are focused on pedagogy, and designers are working on enhancing the user experience. The developers were throwing around terms like “API integration” while educators were concerned about whether a 10-year-old could navigate it. [And] the designers? They were concerned about creating appealing designs.”
Sounds rough, doesn’t it? But this situation perfectly describes the complexity of leading a cross-functional team!
Without cross-functional collaboration, each team will only worry about their tasks from their own perspective. It makes total sense — they’ll be thinking about the tasks they need to perform.
So, it’s up to you to make those dots connect.
“One particular moment that struck me was when I noticed a lack of communication among everyone involved. That made me think, “If I don’t step in, we’ll end up with software that’s completely impractical.” I took on the role of a mediator simplifying concepts into everyday language to ensure everyone was on the same page or at least in sync. This led to the creation of a platform that seemed to reduce stress for the team except for the developers who’re accustomed to such scenarios.”
Essentially, to ensure efficient cross-functional collaboration, you need to act as a translator for your teams and get them to understand each other.
This will open up a path to improved communication between the teams themselves — not to mention make ideas and productivity flow freely.
Simplify your collaboration process with Plaky
Choosing a PM tool, on the other hand, is a hassle in its own right.
So, why not go with the one that gives you the most capabilities in its free plan?
With Plaky, you can set up the free plan to try it out, without stressing about the “you can only use this plan with 5 team members” notification — because there is none. Plaky’s free plan has no arbitrary limits!
Some of the best Plaky features you could use to improve cross-functional collaboration are:
- Comments and @mentions — When two teams are working together, things can get hectic. Use these features to make sure that notifications stay relevant to the specific tasks that people are assigned to.
- File sharing — Share files in Plaky to avoid information silos — and ensure everyone can access relevant project materials. With the file-sharing feature, team members collaborating on tasks together can also easily share their results and improve on their work.
- Gantt view — Improve project and task clarity by using Gantt charts. We’ve talked about your team learning how their work fits into the project as a whole — and the Gantt view lets them do exactly that. With it, they can clearly see how their tasks relate to other tasks in the project, improving coordination between teams.
- Notifications — Use notifications to make sure everyone is up to date on their relevant tasks. Every time a change is made to a task someone’s subscribed to, they’ll be notified in real time.
Plaky gives you many more tools for effective collaboration, but most importantly, it doesn’t take much time to get used to it.
With Plaky being so easy to navigate and user-friendly, your team can avoid wasting precious time acclimating — and get to collaborating without pause.
Need a reliable platform to implement cross-functional collaboration? Plaky is the tool for you — sign up for a free account today.
