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Quick: what’s the biggest challenge in cross-functional collaboration?\u00a0 Bing!\u00a0 Yes, “building trusting, open relationships” is correct!\u00a0 Does that sound too Oprah-esque?\u00a0 Let’s think about it for a minute.\u00a0 How do you build\u00a0trusting, open relationships in your cross-functional team, and why does it matter?<\/p>\n
Let’s start with why it matters.\u00a0 How successful will your\u00a0collaboration be if each group is holding their cards tight to their chest, focused solely on “winning” what their group needs?\u00a0 Heck, do you even know<\/em> what other<\/em> groups\u00a0need?\u00a0 If not, what are your chances of working together successfully?\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Where do we stand now?\u00a0 The IT, Licensing, and Product teams needed to collaborate to sell online product subscriptions. Collaboration to date had gone badly; the project was far behind and the groups were antagonistic toward each other.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Trust needed to be rebuilt before success was possible. \u00a0I facilitated a steering committee of Program Managers from each group.\u00a0 We started out by putting all our cards on the table.\u00a0 Each person explained their group’s needs,\u00a0constraints, and view of the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once we had the full picture, the root cause became clear.\u00a0 Each group had fundamentally different success metrics and priorities; as a result, they acted at cross-purposes, which undermined the overall effort<\/u>.\u00a0 What had been seen as incompetence and arrogance made complete sense when seen in context.\u00a0 Now unified, the steering committee was hopping with ideas to improve the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you have a charged situation with emotions to defuse, I highly recommend two books from the Harvard Negotiation Project<\/a>.\u00a0 The first is called “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In<\/a>“, by Fisher & Uri, and the second is called “Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most<\/a>“, by Stone, Patton & Heen.<\/p>\n Who Owns What? Decisions shouldn’t be made by consensus:\u00a0there should be one owner with\u00a0many advisors.\u00a0 Be clear on who owns which decisions.\u00a0 For example, Product Management typically owns the requirements.\u00a0 Similarly, Engineering should own implementation decisions.\u00a0 Occasionally there may be escalations, but in general, each member needs to trust the decision-maker’s expertise enough to relinquish power.<\/p>\n I hesitated when writing the previous paragraph because it seems so obvious: and yet here’s where the trusting and open relationships come into play again.\u00a0<\/p>\n If Product Management isn’t confident Engineering will deliver on time, the PM may try to take over some implementation decisions.\u00a0 To defend against this,\u00a0Engineering\u00a0may avoid sharing information.\u00a0 The PM is now in the dark:\u00a0his confidence drops further, and his tendency to intervene increases.<\/p>\n Similarly, if Engineering thinks they can chart\u00a0a\u00a0better product direction\u00a0than Product Management, they may try to take over requirements decisions.\u00a0 Instead of fighting for dominance, a PM in that situation may present the requirements as final, rather than a draft for discussion.<\/p>\n I’m not saying each group shouldn’t weigh in.\u00a0 Engineering has a very important perspective that\u00a0should be\u00a0factored into\u00a0requirements, and Product Management has real needs that must be met in implementation.\u00a0 That said, ownership should stay where it belongs unless there’s real danger of failure, in which case escalation is appropriate.<\/p>\n Do you have any successes or war stories to share?\u00a0 Let’s hear them!<\/p>\n Would you like help addressing situations like this to deliver projects more effectively?\u00a0 If so, let’s talk<\/a>.<\/p>\n Best Wishes,<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Have your groups worked together successfully in the past, or is there a history of bad blood?\u00a0\u00a0If people are still throwing elbows at each other, that’s a problem.\u00a0 Here’s an example I was involved in:<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Everyone on a cross-functional team brings an important perspective to the table.\u00a0\u00a0When\u00a0clear owners are defined, the variety of perspectives informs decision-making.\u00a0 When owners aren’t<\/em> well-defined, it quickly becomes a situation of “too many cooks in the kitchen”.\u00a0<\/p>\n