Cross-functional team

DEFINITION
• According t academic resources a cross-functional team is a group of
people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal.
It may include people from finance, marketing, operations, and human
resources departments.
• Typically, it includes employees from all levels of an organization.
Members may also come from outside an organization (in particular, from
suppliers, key customers, or consultants).
 MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
• Function as self-directed teams assigned to a specific task which calls for
the input and expertise of numerous departments.
• Increases the level of creativity and reduces the groupthink.
• Each group have a solution to the problem, giving a potential solution to
the task.
• Alternative perspectives
 Decision Making
• Depends on consensus
• Led by manager/coach/tam leader
• Leadership can be a challenging because they must direct teams in various
disciplines
• Linked to the board of the company objectives and functions
• A group of individuals of various backgrounds and disciplines are assembled to
collaborate in an efficient manner in order to better the organization or solve a
problem.
Effective cross-functional teams
 TIPS
• The team must have experience working autonomously to be self-directed.
• Leaders must take the responsibilities to carry on the team goals.
• Define a clear goal in order to bring to the members a clear vision of their
tasks.
• The success must be shared
• Communication
• Cross-functional teams are made to absorb and adapt to change
TOOLS TO SUPPORT THE CROSS-
FUNCTIONAL TEAM
 The importance of the software
implementation
• DROPBOX: Dropbox is a cloud-based file hosting, syncing and sharing
service.
• JIRA: Atlassian Jira is a cross-platform agile software development and
team collaboration tool. It helps high-performing agile teams plan and
track issues and projects so that they can deliver software on time and
frequently.
• SLACK: is a team chat app that keeps teams in the know. Agile teams can
chat and make calls, personalize conversations, and share files.
 CONCLUSION
• In organizational behavior management it is important to understand that all
departments in the company are essential for the achievement of the goals.
• With the cross-functional management all departments are linked to work together
with a common goal. For example: the commercial team requires the marketing
team to focus on their clients, but the financial team has the portfolio budget which
is required by the marketing department to collect information.
• Requires leadership and training, to be achieved successfully by the company. The
leader must understand that the groups must have experience to be autonomous.
 REFERENCES
• https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/6-tips-developing-cross-functional-
teams
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-functional_team