CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS: Crossfunctional Management Teams, Cross-functional Innovation Teams. Building Synergies across organization

Balanced Business Balanced Organization Systemic Innovation		Cross-functional Teams Driving systemic innovation and mutual problem solving		Vadim Kotelnikov
				Founder

Cross-functional Team Defined

Cross-functional teams comprise human resources belonging to a company’s different functional areas or departments who come together and work collectively to manage the organization, achieve a common goal or accomplish a project.

Cross-functional team is a group of employees from various functional areas of the organization – research, engineering, marketing, finance. HR, and operations, etc. – who are all focused on a specific objective and are responsible to work as a synergistic team to improve coordination and innovation across divisions and resolve mutual problems.

Coaching by Example

At INNOMPIC GAMES, the Art of Innovation is approached in a holistic A-to-Z/360 way. Innoteams are thus must be cross-functional to perform wonderfully.

Why Cross-functional Teams?

Losing organizations fail because of their functional mindset. They lack of cross-functional goals and cross-functional collaboration spirit. Their cross-functional teams are powerless, if any. New products fail because cross-functional innovation teams are weak or insufficiently empowered.

To face today's complex challenges, you need to incorporate a wide range of styles, skills, and perspectives. Cross-functional teams are regarded as a means to manage social collaboration and concept creation.

Some examples of cross-functional teams are teams established to:

→ improve or reinvent business design and business model;

→ exercise cross-functional management;

→ design and develop new products;

→ chose and implement new technologies throughout organization;

→ discovering synergies between functions;

→ generate synergistic and systemic innovations;

→ to improve the service-profit chain, and

→ to control product costs.

Cross-functional Innovation Teams >> Cross-functional Team Meetings

"What you need is a fundamental humility – the belief that you can learn from anyone."

– Clayton Christensen

Effective Innovation Process

7 Lessons from Silicon Valley Firms

Make cross-functional involvement the path of least resistance... More

Why New Products Fail?

Cross-functional teams are weak or insufficiently empowered... More

New Product Development (NPD)

10 Characteristics of the Most Successful Companies

Empower cross-functional innovation teams and establish a jazz-like innovation process... More

5 Strategies for Creating a Culture for Innovation

Synergize: Leverage diversity; facilitate cross-pollination of ideas; create and empower cross-functional teams... More

The Jazz of Innovation

11 Practice Tips

Build cross-functional expertise to harness the power of diversity and discover synergies. Develop cross-functional individuals. Shuffle portfolios. Establish diverse cross-functional innovation teams... More

Key Tasks Implemented by Cross-functional Teams

Managing Continuous & Organization-wide Change

Establishing institutional excellence
Creating a process-managed enterprise
Driving systemic innovation processes
Driving continuous improvement processes
Improving customer service

Implementing Specific Time-bound Tasks

Brainstorming, creating innovative ideas and solutions
New product design and development
Managing complex projects
Negotiating complex deals

Building a Team Culture

10 Action Areas

Empower teams... More

9 Roles of a Team Leader

Break Down Barriers To Communication

Have innovation contests where cross-functional teams compete... More

Kaizen Mindset

See problem solving as cross-functional systemic and collaborative approach... More

Inspirational Leadership: 10 Roles

Teamwork is essential for competing in today's global arena. Build a star team, not a team of stars. Diversity of thought, perception, background and experience enhance the creativity and innovation. A team should not just be diverse; it has to make the most of it. Involve everyone, facilitate cross-pollination of ideas, build and empower cross-functional teams if you wish to harness the power of diversity. Challenge people from different disciplines and cultures to come up with something better together and achieve creative breakthroughs.... More

How To Break Down Barriers To Communication

Organize cross-functional teams for all sorts of projects. Make them as loose or as formal as you see fit but be sure that there is good mixing and that all of the departments contribute... More

Case in Point GE

As far as Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of GE, is concerned, middle managers have to be team members and coaches. Welch gives a hypothetical example.³ Assume there is a multifunctional business consisting of engineering, marketing, and manufacturing components. And the business has the best manufacturing person it has ever had – someone with excellent numbers, who produces high-quality goods on time:

"But this person won't talk with people in engineering and manufacturing. He won't share ideas with them, and won't behave in a boundaryless way with them. But now we're replacing that person with someone who may not be quite a perfect but who is a good team player and lifts the team's performance. Maybe the predecessor was working at 100% or 120%, but that person didn't talk with team members, didn't swap ideas. As a result, the whole team was operating at 65%. But the new manager is getting 90% or 100% from the whole total. That was a discovery."⁴

25 Lessons from Jack Welch

Case in Point Hewlett-Packard Way

To create an organization that could sustain its competitive advantage regardless of marketplace whims and what their competitors were building, HP founders based their corporate culture on the integration and reinforcement of critical opposites. This became known as the Hewlett-Packard Way. HP has achieved "what appears to be the greatest dichotomy: creating an environment that celebrates individualism, but at the same time one that is also wholly supportive of teamwork. Although HP people are taught to engage in cross-functional teams, they are also rated on the performance of decentralized business units and personal achievement."¹... More