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8 tips to successfully collaborate with cross-functional teams

Boost cross-functional team collaboration with these 8 practical tips. Improve communication, align goals, and promote teamwork for successful project outcomes.

Paul Debahy
Oct 29, 2024 . 12 min read

"Teamwork makes the Dreamwork." You've probably heard this adage many times over. As cliche as it sounds, this phrase fully depicts the importance of teamwork in organizations. 

The modern workplace doesn't thrive in isolation. Thanks to digital transformation and the advancement of collaborative tech solutions, businesses are in an era of team-oriented work. Companies are eliminating bottlenecks and setting up visible processes to get different teams to work together efficiently towards a common goal. 

But how do you ensure the success of cross-functional team collaboration? How do you keep things running smoothly when dealing with different work styles, expectations, and approaches? 

In this post, we will share eight tips for successfully collaborating with cross-functional teams to improve synergy in the workplace. 

TL;DR

  • Cross-functional work involves collaboration between different departments (e.g., marketing, HR, finance) to achieve common business goals by sharing ideas and expertise.
  • This work approach encourages innovation, challenges groupthink, and provides businesses with creative strategies to solve complex problems, as seen in some of the biggest companies in the world. 
  • Some common issues cross-functional teams face include poor communication, lack of centralized information, trust deficits, and unresolved conflicts. Addressing these issues helps avoid project delays and inefficiencies.
  • Key strategies for successful cross-functional work include clarifying roles, setting SMART goals, hosting concept reviews, avoiding micromanagement, encouraging knowledge sharing, using the right communication channels, staying adaptable, and frequently re-evaluating processes for better synergy.
  • Luna helps cross-functional teams collaborate efficiently throughout the project’s lifecycle. On one platform, different teams can define their plans, share information, track documentation and milestone progress, and strategically involve stakeholders. You can try Luna today for free.

What is cross-functional work?

Cross-functional work occurs between two or more teams or departments in the workplace. In most companies, teams are separated based on their work - think marketing, HR, Sales, or Finance. While these teams work well on their own, the most important work usually happens when they work together to share their ideas and perspectives on achieving a set goal. 

For example, assume you want to attract top talents for a marketing role in your company. You need the HR department to work on the recruiting process. You also need the marketing team to put together a job description to help you attract the right candidate. In this scenario, two functional teams work together to hire the right talent for your company. This is the essence of cross-functional work. 

Why is it important? 

The biggest companies fully embrace cross-functional work. There is immense value in bringing people from different backgrounds and experiences together and having them infuse projects with their unique skills and creativity. 

Cross-functional work collaboration gives businesses an edge in tackling problems and achieving their goals. Modern business is constantly evolving, and this type of work environment allows companies to challenge the status quo and devise new strategies to solve complex problems. 

Another reason cross-functional collaboration is important is that it challenges groupthink. When everyone takes the same approach or thinks the same way, it's easy to fall back on old solutions and become afraid to think outside the box. A cross-functional work environment forces individuals to find new and exciting ways to approach issues and find lasting solutions. 

Common challenges cross-functional teams face (and quick fixes)

With 75% of cross-functional teams dysfunctional, it is clear that, even with all the amazing benefits of this type of collaboration, companies must overcome challenges to thrive. Some of the most common challenges are:

Poor communication

Functional teams tend to develop their unique communication cues, which may not easily translate to other teams when working cross-functionally. For example, technical teams may use specific terms or acronyms that are unfamiliar to non-technical departments, while creative teams may communicate more abstractly. This mismatch can lead to misunderstandings, delays in project timelines, and frustration. 

Quick fix: Establish a clear communication plan and path so that everyone on the team knows how information is to be shared in an accessible and easy-to-understand way so nothing gets lost in translation. 

No centralized record hub

Different teams have different ways of storing information and tend to work out of different platforms or channels. When working in cross-functional teams, chasing down different versions of information and irrelevant status updates on multiple platforms can lead to miscommunication and time wasting.

Quick fix: Create a centralized system where all project information passes through and grants relevant stakeholders access to the right information. A centralized information hub helps with cross-functional alignment throughout the project lifecycle. 

Tip: You can use Luna for cross-functional project management to keep teams updated on project status and manage milestones effectively in a centralized hub. Luna provides a visible roadmap of the project and promotes the proactive involvement of all teams. Try Luna today for free

Lack of trust

When working on cross-functional projects, team members may experience a lack of trust in other teams to deliver their tasks. This could lead to social loafing, a situation where individuals perform lower in groups than they would if they were tasked to handle the project alone. A lack of trust may also lead to knowledge hoarding, where team members refuse to share their expertise with other teams, thus derailing the project. 

Quick fix: Show team members how their cross-functional goals are aligned and how each team's performance and contribution affect the success of the entire project and higher business goals. This way, team members are aware that they have to work together to achieve success. 

No conflict resolution

A typical cross-functional work environment means working with people you aren't familiar with. No matter how great your communication skills are, sometimes miscommunications happen, resulting in conflicts. If not addressed, this can be detrimental to the project's success.

Quick fix: Cross-functional project management comes in handy when conflicts need to be resolved. A project manager can navigate conflicts and devise strategies to resolve them before they affect the project's course. 

8 Tips for successful cross-functional team collaboration

Here are ten tips to help different cross-functional teams navigate the complex nature of this type of collaboration and work together towards a common goal. 

Team leaders must clarify roles

It is very important that team leaders step up and clearly state each team member's role to ensure they know what is expected of them. Set up a meeting and show them how each of their roles affects the project's success. This is to create a sense of responsibility in each team member and ensure they are fully invested in the project's success. 

Tip: Set up a back-and-forth dialogue session where team leaders answer any project-related questions and encourage open discussion. This way, team members feel like they are a core part of the project. 

Set SMART project goals for each team

Use SMART or OKR goal-setting techniques to set clear goals, so each team member is fully aware of what everyone is trying to achieve. Ensure the goals you set are realistic and that every team involved in the project can connect to them. You don't want to set goals that are abstract to specific teams, as this may result in reduced morale or interest in the project. 

OKR goal setting table - Luna
How to set shared OKRs

For example, imagine you are launching a new product, and leadership sets a broad goal: "Increase brand awareness by 70%".  While this goal makes sense to the marketing and sales team, it is too vague for the engineering or product development team as "increasing brand awareness" doesn't clearly align with their daily tasks of coding, debugging, etc. This could result in them losing interest when this particular conversation comes up. 

Host concept reviews

Concept reviews are opportunities for stakeholders to assess the work done so far and provide feedback. It's important to host these reviews regularly, especially when working with cross-functional teams, so everyone knows whether to continue on the path they are on or make a detour based on stakeholder recommendations. Concept reviews also enable you to make important changes at strategic times before the project nears completion. 

Tip: Luna enables you to bring in stakeholders at strategic stages of the project with customized views and share updates on their preferred channels. You can create tailored project roadmaps so specific stakeholders only see what they need to see without being bombarded with irrelevant information. 

Avoid micromanagement

Cross-functional team collaborations only work successfully when project managers give each team the freedom and space to work on their tasks without constantly breathing down their necks. Cross-functional team management is not easy, and sometimes, project managers may feel like they are leaving teams to do whatever they want. It is important to strike a balance between giving teams the space to be creative and holding them accountable for their work. You can implement systems to monitor their performance without encroaching on their space. 

Tip: Luna helps align different teams around shared milestones so they can collaborate on a centralized hub where their progress is visible. The integration with Jira also automates notifications and follow-ups when team members start working on certain milestones. You can try Luna for free today. 

Encourage knowledge sharing

The point of cross-functional team collaboration is that teams stop thinking as a department and more as one unit. Collaborative workflows are great, but if teams aren't sharing knowledge with other teams, it could impact your project negatively. You can encourage knowledge sharing by creating a healthy avenue for other team members to receive this knowledge. For example, you can share how knowledge shared with other teams is a way to save valuable time. Instead of one team chasing down another for information, sharing and storing it enables teams to access it whenever they need to. It's also important to be ready to store this information in your knowledge base for future reference and invite relevant contributors or stakeholders to assess and update the information as often as needed. 

Use the right communication channels

Creating transparency and a clear line of communication is important for successful cross-functional team collaboration. Communication in this kind of work setting requires a bit of a mindset shift. There must be open lines of communication between all the teams working together, and people should be able to get quick responses to issues. Popular communication tools like Google Chat, Slack, Team, Zoom, etc., come in handy for cross-functional teams to share information. Project management tools like Asana and Jira also come in handy for automating workflows and ensuring cross-functional alignment at all times. 

Tip: Luna allows seamless integration with your favorite PM tools like Jira, ClickUp, etc., as well as communication tools like Slack, Gmail, Teams, etc. You can also integrate your document hub and trackers like Google Docs and Sheets, respectively. This way, you can sync all your communications on one platform. Whether you need to track a document, respond to a message, or check new versions of a file, you can do it all on Luna. Try Luna for free today. 

Be adaptable

There are always a lot of moving parts in cross-functional work environments. It is important to remain adaptable and handle the changes as they come. For example, stakeholders may assess the project's progress and decide to go a different direction, or unexpected layoffs may happen, taking away some of your key team players. While this may be a little inconvenient, you should be able to readjust and implement strategies to keep the project on track while managing the time/resources lost. Being adaptable helps ensure you meet set milestones regardless of what changes occur. 

Re-evaluate existing processes often

A major part of cross-functional team management is ensuring your processes are relevant to the needs of the teams and the entire project. If a particular process seems to be causing more confusion than clarity, you should be open to re-evaluating and possibly changing it. You should have an agile approach to your processes. Take the time to look over the processes that have existed for a while. What can be improved? What caused a communication breakdown? How can we get deliverables a lot faster? Doing these evaluations as often as possible will help you perfect your processes, spot weak spots, and build effective cross-functional teams. 

Cross-functional team collaboration is the backbone of the most important projects

A solid cross-functional work environment is the core of the most important projects your business will handle. By eliminating silos and optimizing the strengths of various teams in your company, you will be able to work well with different teams and achieve milestones quickly. Take the time to establish good processes and best practices and see your teams thrive. 

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