Businesses need team collaboration across functional lines to sustain creative ideas and take
advantage of workers’ diverse skill sets. Unfortunately, the majority of cross-functional
teams are unproductive, with unclear management and ambiguous project goals. For crossfunctional teams to be successful, they need to employ collaborative techniques that serve
their project objectives and enable employees to enter into productive collaborations easily
regardless of their sectors or disciplines. Most importantly, it is very crucial for success in the
long term.
Would you like to know what cross-team collaboration is and why it’s important? Let’s take a
closer look. In this article, we’ll focus on cross-team collaboration. So, let’s get started.
What is Cross-team Collaboration?
A cross-functional team is formed when employees from several departments or teams
(such as marketing, production, HR, engineeriing, and IT) work together to accomplish a
similar objective, task, or project. Cross-functional cooperation can range from day-to-day
tasks such as marketing and customer service teams working together to maintain the
corporation’s social media platforms to product and sales teams working together to
develop new services for consumers.
Why Is Cross-team Collaboration Important?
In an organization, cross-team collaboration is crucial. Here is some importance of crossteam collaboration:
● Developing a collaborative culture in which people are responsible for their actions
while working together to achieve a common goal or solution.
● By collaborating, all departments have a better chance of solving the same issues in
less time.
● Improve inter-departmental communication.
Benefits of Cross-team Collaboration
Here are some of the benefits of cross-functional teams:
● Creating a collaborative culture requires cross-functional teams
● The members of a team can learn from each other.
● Cross-functional teams are an effective way to engage employees
● Developing leadership skills with cross-functional teams
● When there is cross-functional collaboration, work becomes more interesting.
● Cross-functional teams are more productive
● Cross-functional teams are handling effective conflict resolution.
How To Improve Cross-Team Collaboration
What is the best way to improve team collaboration? We approached several collaborative
specialists across a range of sectors to address this issue. They offered excellent suggestions
for many issues and best practices for cross-teams.
Creating Performance Indicators
It may also be useful to measure your influence on team members. People are curious about
the value of their jobs. Showing how your efforts contribute to your team’s success (and to
its achievements) can enhance engagement and atmosphere.
Develop a Culture of Collaboration
Collaboration is about creating an environment where cooperation is appreciated and
rewarded. Although some managers consider cooperation to be wasteful and limiting,
emotionally intelligent managers understand that this approach is productive and
worthwhile. Cooperation and collaboration allow employees to tap into a much larger pool
of expertise than they might benefit from otherwise, such as the company’s collective knowledge.
Select The Best Team
Working together collaboratively makes some of the most successful teams. Team members
must be intentionally recruited in order to maximize their potential for success. Team
members should be complimentary in skill set, not exactly the same. Collaborative teams
have a very different structure from typical teams. Generally, there is no hierarchy in this
team, and they adopt a democratic approach. Making a concerted effort to identify best
candidates who bring multiple perspectives to the outcome creates synergy and success. In
order to effectively meet environmental challenges, having the best team on board will align
to the strategies and productivity of your organization overall.
Increasing Staff Commitment
Cross-functional team members are vital to each other and should be appreciated
accordingly. All members should feel significant if their duties are clearly defined.
Maintaining and appropriately assessing members’ contributions is essential. It is important
to prevent the spread of opinions on crucial topics, through transparency and clear
instructions. Ensure staff commitment otherwise they will be reluctant to collaborate due
to complexity, misinformation and lack of trust. When staff is informed of end goal, they are
more likely to be committed to the vision/mission and/or change.
Encourage Creativity
High potentials are creative problem solvers, so listen to them and support them. You can
foster innovation in your business culture by encouraging employees to develop ideas,
especially in a collaborative environment. By holding frequent brainstorming sessions, you
can establish and get everyone’s interest.
Rewarding Cooperation
Positive reinforcement encourages people to behave positively – so be sure to praise your
actions. Whether a project succeeds or fails, there is always something to learn. Learn from
errors and successes and apply them to enhance your project’s success rate. If the staff is
not acknowledged for their collaborative work, all other methods for improvement may be undermined.
Final Thought
Collaboration across teams isn’t a new concept. However, it is a continuous process that
must be implemented as part of its work culture. Organizations encounter cross-team
collaboration nearly every day, but only if they are implemented properly. Assisting the
company to achieve its objectives and attaining greater success is the key to effective crossfunctional teams. Implementing these steps may increase your success rate of crossfunctional cooperation.