What is cross-functional collaboration?

Cross-functional collaboration happens when people from different teams and departments work together on the same project. Employees from varying backgrounds pool their knowledge and resources to create an efficient workflow and a more innovative solution.

Imagine that your company is designing a new product. In a traditional workflow, your sales team might come up with an idea based on customer comments. Then, the project passes through design, production and marketing, bouncing back and forth between departments as new issues arise.

In a cross-functional collaboration, an employee from each team is involved from the beginning. The departments work together throughout the project rather than taking it in stages.

• Marketers check website analytics to see what products visitors are searching for.
• The sales team looks at the numbers to see what customers are actually buying.
• Customer service agents can offer feedback on the top questions and complaints about existing products.
• Design engineers come up with a design based on the initial specs.
• The supply chain manager analyzes prices and makes material or component recommendations.
• Production line professionals assess the existing equipment’s practical limitations.

Cross-functional collaborations aren’t always complex; in some cases, they involve just two departments.

Business benefits of cross-functional collaboration

Cross-functional projects require more effort up front; getting accustomed to a new workflow takes time. If you’re willing to make the effort, the results can significantly benefit the business as a whole.

Save time

One of cross-functional collaboration’s biggest benefits is efficiency. Each team has a chance to state its practical concerns and limitations early on, which makes it easier to avoid going too far down the wrong road. This method can reduce typical back and forth between departments, eliminate bottlenecks and push the project through faster.

Encourage innovation

Your employees have a wealth of insight and experience. When you bring all of these diverse perspectives into the same room, it sets the stage for innovation. Team members can bounce ideas off one another and brainstorm solutions informed by the group’s collective wisdom. If your company is ready for big changes, cross-team collaboration can be the driving force.

Create a culture of inclusion

When you involve people from a variety of departments, it helps employees feel respected and valued for their insight. Hearing input directly from other teams can also build a sense of respect across the company. As the tradition of cross-functional collaboration works its way into your company culture, it can boost employee satisfaction, reduce turnover and improve recruiting and hiring.

Potential pitfalls of cross-functional collaboration

Group collaborations always come with challenges; these issues often arise from conflicting priorities and working styles. As you build a cross-functional collaboration workflow, it’s important to be aware of common pitfalls.

Resistance

If your employees are accustomed to working exclusively within their own departments, you may encounter a certain level of resistance to cross-functional collaboration. This is normal — after all, a new workflow requires employees to get out of their comfort zone. The resulting anxiety can cause them to push back and inhibit the process.

Lack of respect

Cross-functional collaboration tends to reveal the hidden biases and animosities between teams. For example, your engineers might not understand the technical writing team’s value, or you may encounter conflict between production line workers and designers. To work well together, teams must overcome these attitudes and opinions.

Unequal contributions

A successful cross-functional partnership requires each person to pull their weight. If one or more departments are slacking off, it can frustrate other team members and create delays. Unequal contributions aren’t always intentional — teams may drop the ball when they’re overwhelmed with other projects.

Location

If a significant portion of your workforce works remotely, location can be an obstacle to cross-functional projects. Remote teams may find themselves excluded from casual in-office discussions, and on-site workers may feel pressured to take on a heavier burden.

Competing priorities

During a normal project, each department prioritizes its own responsibilities. When they start working with other teams, it can be challenging to let go of this mindset. As a result, you may find that different departments become entrenched in their perspective or overly focused on a specific feature or metric.

How to enable cross-functional collaboration in your business

As with any new business venture, cross-functional collaboration requires careful planning. When you’re fully prepared, it’s easier to overcome potential pitfalls and harness the power of your employees’ collective insight and creativity.

1. Get buy-in from leaders and managers

Before starting a cross-functional project, ensure supervisors and managers are on board. When managers are positive and enthusiastic about the project, it can help reduce dissent among employees.

For larger initiatives, consider asking company leadership to participate in positive messaging. Their input makes it clear that collaboration is a company priority.

2. Time projects carefully

During your company’s first multi-team collaboration, it’s safe to expect a slow start. Teams need time to come up with a new workflow and figure out how to work together.

To ensure they can do so without excess pressure, try to schedule the first project during the company’s slower season. Talk to managers about team workloads and avoid big delivery dates or historically busy periods.

3. Choose the right technology

Cross-departmental collaborations work best when everyone is on the same page. Before the project begins, consider setting up a project management technology platform; it becomes the central hub for assigning tasks, posting updates and asking questions.

This type of real-time communication makes it easy for remote and on-site team members to track the project at all times. That way, they can ask questions or raise concerns right away, preventing bottlenecks and unnecessary delays down the line. It also establishes a digital paper trail and creates accountability among departments.

4. Choose leaders and assign roles

Cross-functional collaborations often require a leader to keep the project on track. Assign one or two people who can command the room and garner respect from fellow employees. Their job isn’t to complete the project but to facilitate the process.

Then, figure out which departments should be involved. Determine who should represent the department in meetings and assign roles as necessary. Include people from diverse backgrounds to get the most from the collaboration.

5. Work together to set goals and priorities

Gather the group to discuss the project and decide how to proceed. Start by inviting each department to explain their role in the process. With that common understanding, you can work together to set milestones, goals, metrics and priorities.

This process can be challenging — it requires humility and self-awareness — but it’s worth your time to push through. By establishing priorities early on, you can ensure that teams spend time wisely on tasks that are relevant to the project.

6. Prioritize communication

Communication is critical to a successful collaboration between departments. That’s why a project management platform is so helpful; it enables team members to make quick updates that are visible to the entire group. This eliminates inbox clutter and ensures that everyone is on the same page.

Consider meeting regularly to discuss the project; meeting frequency depends on the deadline and the scope of work. In-person meetings are a chance for creative brainstorming and ideation. You can also encourage team members to chat casually about smaller tasks.

7. Ensure that everyone has a chance to speak

To get the most from a collaboration, ensure each department has a chance to contribute. It may be tempting for one or more departments to dominate the conversation, but in doing so, you might miss out on valuable insights from smaller or quieter groups.

Some ways to encourage equal communication:

• Give departments a set amount of time to update the group
• Ask employees to clarify jargon or technical terms
• Insist on respect and collegiality

8. Encourage leaders to build relationships

Leaders can help maximize cross-departmental collaboration’s value by building relationships with individual teams and employees. This creates opportunities to discuss the project and express concerns privately. With that information, leaders know when to step in to help solve a conflict or encourage a specific person to speak up in meetings.

9. Manage workloads

While working on projects with other teams, employees will still need to keep up with their usual responsibilities. It’s important to be flexible on both sides — if one team is dealing with a tight deadline on a given week, the cross-functional group might focus on a task that involves other departments. Likewise, managers can support the collaboration by easing the workload for participating employees as necessary.

Successful cross-functional projects take time

Cross-functional collaboration can benefit any company, but finding the right process takes trial and error. With time and persistence, you can design a system that drives growth and innovation.