Cross-functional Teams

A while ago I wrote this blog post about team stability, in which I argued that team stability should not be thought of in isolation. Rather, it’s interconnected with at least two other important dimensions: team size and cross-functionality (or wholeness, as it’s labelled in the Iron Triangle of Teaming). It’s been on my to-do list for while now to write separate blog posts on these two topics. When I recently re-watched Ocean’s Eleven (I have this theory that we can learn a lot from heist movies…), I was reminded of the topic of cross-functionality, since Ocean’s group is a prime example of a very cross-functional team: They have the master mind, the safe-cracker, the hacker, the expert for explosives, escape car drivers and even a “grease man”. Then I remembered that my brother Stefan and I have written a paper on this very topic a long time ago. Funny enough, the paper begins with Ocean’s Eleven and the A-Team as examples for cross-functional teams.

I re-read the article and quickly realized I couldn’t write a better one now, twelve years later. So I have decided to only write this short teaser blog post and send everyone our paper instead, which is pure Roocket Science.

Here’s a summary of the paper:

Cross-functional teams are faster and more innovating than mono-functional teams. However, cross-functionality is not an either-or decision. There is a tension with the work efficiency in the team. The appropriate level of cross-functionality depends on the goal of the team. The more innovation and more learning required, the more cross-functional the team should be. In practice, most teams are not cross-functional enough, because too much emphasis is placed on efficiency. Accordingly, it is not wrong for teams to experiment with gradual steps towards cross-functionality. Parallel to this gradual approach to optimizing the cross-functionality of the team, it makes sense to invest in reducing the associated cost: It is often very useful to include a coach or facilitator, and to invest in expanding the capabilities of the team members.