Although working in cross-functional teams seems to be the de-facto standard in our industry, how to lead these teams doesn't seem to be very well understood. If you are in a leadership position and work with cross-functional teams, this article will help you improve the way you lead and will help your teams to achieve more.

What was the idea of cross-functional teams again?

In modern product development, we know that cross-functional collaboration is the key to true innovation and effective mitigation of the four big risks: the value risk, the usability risk, the feasibility risk, and finally the (business) viability risk. That's why we want the cross-functional team to collaborate throughout the entire product discovery and delivery cycle. Engineers should be part of the discussions from the beginning to fully understand the user perspective, market dynamics, constraints, etc. Only then can we expect them to contribute with innovative solutions and exploit the full technical potential. Only then can we expect them to put all their skin in the game to solve a customer problem.

We also want to ensure that there are no hierarchies within the product teams. We want the team to make decisions based on evidence and after discussing the various viewpoints of the individual disciplines. Therefore, these decisions must not be biased by hierarchical power.

Nevertheless, we need leaders in every organization, and a key role for any leader is to coach and develop their employees to their full potential. This can best be done by individuals who are experienced in the area of expertise. Product people are best developed by people with deep product knowledge, and the same is true for design and engineering. That's why most companies have organizational charts in which product managers report to a head of product, designers report to a lead designer, and engineers report to a head of engineering.

So, what’s the matter with cross-functional leadership?

Although many in our industry would agree with the above, and cross-functional teams exist in most companies, the leadership of these teams still doesn't seem to be very well understood. Having spoken to many leaders and worked with many different companies, I find that leaders of cross-functional teams often behave as if they are still leading old-fashioned functional teams. The head of product only talks to her product managers and works with them on her strategy for the next planning cycle. The design lead talks only to her designers to set goals for product usability, accessibility, and perhaps user satisfaction. Meanwhile, the head of engineering is working hard on her tech strategy to finally get rid of this messy technical debt and achieve a nicely structured micro-service architecture. No doubt these are all reasonable and important goals in their own right. But what is the cross-functional team supposed to do with them? How is it supposed to organize its work if it has to listen to three different voices telling what to focus on and what to achieve next? Who should resolve the resulting conflicts of priorities? Do we want team members to fight for their personal goals over their colleagues' goals every single day? How is that ever going to be efficient and effective?

What could we do instead? Well, we could align goals on leadership-level already. We could discuss priorities and derive a compelling strategy together instead of in the silos of our disciplines. We could make the tech-strategy and the UX-strategy part of one joint product strategy – cause it’s supposed to be a ‘product strategy’, not a ‘product managers strategy’, right? In the end, we aim to deliver one tech product that is usable for our customers, provides them with the desired value, and is technically feasible with the skills and resources we have.

Users will not celebrate our product for using the most advanced design patterns. They will never get to see the beauty of our technical architecture. Nor will they be interested in our business model. What they are interested in is the value that our product offers them, and for that to happen, all these different aspects have to blend beautifully. That’s why we want tight collaboration between all disciplines of a cross-functional team. And that’s why we need the same tight collaboration in the leadership teams to speak one voice, set direction and provide the teams with the needed clarity.

How can we implement cross-functional leadership?

There are four best practices that can help you implement true cross-functional leadership:

• Regular jour-fixe of the leadership

• Role reversal in communication

• Cross-functional goal alignment

• Cross-functional tactical meetings

Regular jour-fixe of the leadership

Be sure to spend time with your cross-functional leadership colleagues. Meet weekly to align on people, process and product:

• Is there anything important in staffing? Are there any hiring updates? What is our employee retention rate? Is there anything of concern that needs our attention? (people)

• How is the health of the teams? Are there process-related lessons we can transfer from one team to another? What do we need for the upcoming planning cycle? How can we guide teams through the process? What will we do at our next all-hands meeting? (process)

• How good are we at executing our strategy? Have the results achieved led to the desired business impact? Will the teams deliver the desired outcomes? If not, what can we do to support? (product)

Role reversal in communication

Perhaps the most powerful tool in the leadership toolbox is leading by example. If you want your engineers to care about the business metrics of the product and your product managers to keep track of the technical debt, you should genuinely do so yourself. And you should continuously show that you care about all the different aspects of the product. That's why it's very effective to switch roles among your leadership peers from time to time. At the next all-hands meeting, the head of engineering might talk about business strategy while the head of product talks about the next big tech initiative and why it's important. You'll see this has a big impact on your teams and shapes a truly cross-functional culture.

Cross-functional goal alignment

It doesn't matter what framework you use for goal setting, but from time to time you will set new goals. In many companies, this is done on a quarterly basis using the OKR framework. Whenever you get together to talk about new goals, make sure you do it in a cross-functional setup. Talk to either team representatives or the entire team to explain the strategy and resulting goals for the upcoming planning period. Make sure your leadership peers are also present and that you speak with one voice. Make sure you don't set different or competing goals for the different disciplines. Make sure that the goals for each team are aligned and that the priorities are clear to everyone.

Cross-functional tactical meetings

Now that you have set goals, you also want to achieve them. So meet regularly and align with teams also on people, process and product. I call these cross-functional meetings ‘tactical meetings’ because they intend to align and possibly adjust our tactics for implementing our strategy:

• Does a team need support because a team member is out sick for an extended period of time? (people)

• Could Team A help Team B with their experience in Discovery Sprints? (process)

• What is the status of our product performance metrics? (product)

When all functions are at the table, you can quickly identify roadblocks and efficiently remove impediments. It's also a great opportunity to demonstrate cross-functional collaboration and exercise this muscle across all your teams.

Just don't forget to ditch some of the old-fashioned functional meetings in favor of the new cross-functional formats. After all, we all have enough meetings, right?

Now, how do you lead cross-functional teams?

Cross-functionally. That’s about it. ;-)

What do you think?

Have you made different experiences? Do you feel any of these? Have you tried any of these? Share it with me in the comments or drop me a line. I look forward to continuing the discussion.