Cross-Team Collaboration

Course Workbook
Why Cross-Team
Collaboration?

A cross-collaborative team is a temporary grouping of

people from a variety of teams across an organization
who partner to work on a project as a collective.

Collaboration is a leadership skill

Working in a cross-team collaboration you will…

• Learn new areas of your company or business
• Expand and diversify your network
• Deepen relationships with colleagues
• Increase your visibility to senior management
• Develop new communication and persuasion skills
• Lead all or part of a high-impact project
S.M.A.R.T. Goals Worksheet
Use this framework to set goals for your cross-team collaboration.

Write the goal you have in mind.

Initial Goal

What exactly do you want to achieve? Keep it concise.

S
Specific

How can you measure progress and know if you’ve successfully

met your goal?
M
Measurable

Does your team have the resources and skills needed to achieve
your goal? How much effort will it take to achieve the goal?
A
Achievable

Will this effort produce meaningful results for our organization?

How is the work aligned to the high-level goals of the company?
R
Relevant

What is the deadline for your goal?

T

Timebound

Use your answers above to finalize your SMART goal.

SMART
Goal
Assemble Your
Resources and Players

“If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas,

it’s too large.”

Jeff Bezos

Once you’ve established an agenda for your project, secure the right
resources, leader, and participants.
• Your project’s senior executive sponsor should be tasked with
soliciting support from other department heads and influencers in
your organization
• Select a team leader as early as possible
• Participants should have relevant business knowledge and strong
soft skills
• Consider the hierarchical dynamics of your organization when
assembling your team
• Smaller teams are more agile
• Try to keep the team to less than 12 people
• Once the team is identified, invite them to the work

Resource considerations for your team:

1. A space to work
2. Tools and software
3. Time for meetings
4. Budget
Identify Your
Stakeholders
Top-down support and endorsement from executives and leaders in
your organization is directly linked to the success of a cross-team
collaboration. Think of these stakeholders like investors; they need to
know what’s going on and see tangible return on investment.

List the potential resources you’ll need for your cross-team

collaboration.

Now list the desired stakeholders for your project and why they’re
important to the effort and how they can help you acquire the
resources you need to complete the project.
The Benefits of
Working in a Cross-
Team Collaboration
Highlight the value of working in a cross-team collaboration to the
participants on your team such as:
• Access
• Learning
• Relationship building
• Visibility
• Accolades

In addition, explore what other rewards may be available to

participants, such as:
• Bonuses
• Extra vacation time
• Work factored into their annual performance ratings

There are also intangible rewards of working in a cross-team

collaboration. Communicate the tangible and intangible rewards of
the project for participants up front.
Facilitating a Group
Alliance Discussion
When creating a group alliance, encourage all team members to provide
suggestions. Capture ideas on a a space that is visible to participants. The
suggestions will become part of the operating agreement for the group.

Ask the group each of the following questions, one at a time. The questions
likely harken back to your company’s values statement, but the power of the
questions comes from the discussion with the team members. People are
better at keeping their commitments when they help define what those
commitments are.

1. What kind of atmosphere do we want as a group?

• Prompts: Open, collaborative, respectful, honest, positive, attentive, patient,
supportive, trusting, and even fun and interesting
Facilitating a Group
Alliance Discussion
(continued)

2. What do we want to do when things get tough?

• Prompts: Be patient, curious, respectable, coachable, compassionate,
empathetic, helpful, assume positive intent, open to ideas

3. How will we hold ourselves accountable to this work and our group?
• Prompts: Show up to meetings, read materials, do our part, check in with others,
ask for help, see something say something, remember our group alliance

Publish the answers in a visible place, so that the team has a visual reminder of
their commitment to how they will work in the group.
Communications
Protocol
Your communication plan should include the following elements:

• Team meeting schedule

• Gather monthly
• Picking a meeting time that is consistent supports consistent
attendance

• Progress report
• This report should clarify what each person is working on,
share upcoming deadlines, and high-level notes about
progress and challenges

• Shared communication platform

• Use this platform to communicate between meetings and
keep team members informed

• Stakeholder check-in plan

• Keeping stakeholders up-to-speed on progress is critical to
keeping them as supporters
Establish Clear Roles
and Responsibilities
Use a RACI chart to establish clear roles and responsibilities for the
people on your collaborative team.

Responsible: Those doing the actual task

Accountable: The higher-level owner of the task
Consulted: Those who need to provide feedback on the task
Informed: Those who must be informed that an action has been taken

Team member Team member Team member Team member

Tasks
1 2 3 4

Task 1 R A C I

Task 2 A R I C

Task 3 C I R A

Task 4 I R A C

Download the Excel RACI template attached to lecture 10 in the

course to make your own RACI chart.
Measure Impact With
Timeline and Milestones
Develop a timeline with clear milestones and check-in points to measure
progress:
• It’s ok if at first you don’t know how long something will take. Iterate as
necessary
• Plan for monthly or bi-monthly check-ins
• The timeline and check-in points should inform your communication plan
• Monitoring progress helps the team stay grounded in their individual
deadlines and deliverables and provides opportunity for formal reflection
on results and ways to improve results

Debrief Stakeholders
and Identify Next Steps
Plan a debrief session with your stakeholders and all team members to
formally wrap up the project. The debrief should:
• Be a high-level look at the journey
• Talk about the initial objectives and what the group learned that
informs your recommendations for next steps

Include highlights on…

• Why the initiative was successful or unsuccessful
• Key learnings that might be relevant to other areas of the business
• Any unresolved issues or concerns
• A recommendation for how / if the work should continue
• Who will be the keeper of any materials / data from the work
Celebrate Your Work!
Once you’ve finished your project, you need to celebrate the hard
work and effort of all people involved.
• Invite everyone who was involved
• Ask the team leader and/or executive sponsor to make some
remarks of appreciation
• The celebration is a time to deepen camaraderie and
strengthen long-term relationships

The results of a cross-team collaboration can impact many other

teams as it rolls out, so be sure to share the work with your
organization as a whole.

Next Steps
Congratulations on completing the course! Most people working in
business today do not have any formal training on this topic, so you
are ahead of the curve!

If you’re interested in learning more about cross-team collaboration,

check out these two books, or visit my website:
www.staceystaaterman.com

• The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower

Your Team by John C. Maxwell
• Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving
Organization by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright