How to unlock the full potential of your cross-functional teams

The familiar saying likely resonates deeply with leaders who manage cross-functional teams. But turning dreams into reality requires a robust culture of mutual respect and goal-oriented teamwork. A cross-functional team combines multiple departments in a unified group, allowing members to share knowledge and collaborate on ideas.

In web design departments, developers, marketers, and QA professionals work together to collaborate cross-functionally. This model lays a solid foundation for innovation and strong communication. Learn the strategies, practices, and tools you’ll need for successful multi-group work that delivers. 

What’s a cross-functional team?

Cross-functional teams comprise a mix of colleagues from different disciplines, such as design, development, and marketing. Combining various departments helps colleagues learn from each other, which fosters widespread knowledge sharing and innovative collaboration. 

Most web development teams work this way since developing sites and products requires disparate yet interconnected expertise. For example, here’s how a cross-functional team of designers, marketers, and developers might collaborate on site design:

• Designers gain valuable design input from the marketing team’s market research.
• Developers validate and approve bold ideas before designers commit to them.
• Marketers keep a steady pulse on the whole team’s progress to plan their marketing campaigns accordingly.

This contrasts the traditional “department” team model, where each discipline is siloed. That approach has worked for so long because it lets each department keep a laser focus on its responsibilities. But in a new age of sophisticated technology, it’s easier to collaborate cross-departmentally due to abundant technology advancements and new collaboration tools. Multi-team participation encourages innovation and bypasses tedious chains of discussion in favor of real-time communication. 

Benefits of working cross-functionally

When you bring people with diverse perspectives together, you use a wider lens that can let you create a better product. Every team member provides valuable insights that might be novel to their colleagues.

Here are just a few benefits of implementing a cross-functional team structure.

Real-time communication 

A cross-functional team can detect and resolve flaws in project ideas in real time. Their meetings might take longer since there are likely more competing viewpoints, but collaboration occurs in one place, rather than across many separate meetings, messages, or emails.

Increased innovation 

Different departments may approach a project or challenge with different viewpoints. Working together — as opposed to in isolation — means teams face conflicts head-on, together. This can lead to improved creative problem-solving and generate fresh ideas. For example, a developer might tell a designer that a feature isn’t feasible, but as their teams combine their expertise to work out an alternative, they could discover an even more effective solution. 

Knowledge sharing

Fostering a culture of sharing expertise and experience can lead to valuable learning moments. As designers work with developers, they’ll learn the steps and nuances of the development process, and they can use that information when evaluating their designs. Likewise, when marketers learn how designers test and iterate, they can translate those techniques to their campaign testing process. All this knowledge sharing encourages every team member to better understand the project, product, or company as a whole.

Streamlined workflows

Relying on siloed teams to meet separately, arrive at conclusions, and then share with other departments can take up valuable time and lead to delays. Late in the process, other departments might find flaws in the isolated team’s conclusion. Then, the siloed team must meet again, account for the flaw, and arrive at a resolution — only to repeat the same workflow with other teams. 

Cross-functional teams bring these departments together to cut through wasteful processes and establish collaborative workflows. For example, if a siloed website content team discovers a malfunction in a design feature that impacts text readability, they would then need to meet or correspond with the design team to sort out the issue. This might involve extensive back-and-forth exchanges. But, if they made decisions together early and continuously while developing the feature, they could more easily fix or avoid such issues in real time.

Common challenges of cross-functional collaboration

When bringing together an interdisciplinary team, conflicts might arise while collaborating, often stemming from competing viewpoints. Here are the common hurdles your team may face, plus tips for overcoming them.

Conflicting goals

Marketers want to drive sales, designers want to build engagement, and developers want a stable product launch. This intersection is a tremendous strength for cross-functional teams. But it can also be a source of conflict. On one hand, differing goals encourage teams to collaborate on solutions that meet all key criteria. On the other, these varying viewpoints may create turmoil as competing goals clash.

The trick is to nurture a respectful, collaborative environment where everyone feels empowered to offer and object to ideas. That delicate balance is difficult to achieve, but it’s worth the effort. As a starting point, consider hosting engaging team-building exercises when you bring departments together to set a positive tone from the outset. 

Lack of trust

It takes time for any group to trust and rely on one another, especially when everyone’s viewpoint stems from entirely different disciplines. But wise leaders know to start small and build trust piece-by-piece with attainable goals and short-term gains. A few easy wins at the start will prime your cross-functional team to handle the larger challenges together down the road.

Misunderstandings

As team members share knowledge, it’s only natural for misunderstandings to occur. It takes patience and experience for everyone to completely comprehend each other’s roles. For example, a designer might not immediately grasp how marketing concepts impact their own work — this takes time and repetition. 

To push through misunderstandings, encourage a growth mindset in the team. When someone misinterprets a concept or strategy, the feedback they receive should build them up, not tear them down. Candid but respectful communication must remain a central team practice, to keep everyone accountable and empowered.

5 essentials for building a cross-functional team

To build a strong cross-functional team that’s ready to do great things and navigate inevitable challenges, you’ll need robust processes, competent leadership, and a flexible structure. These elements knit your team together into a cohesive unit that’s ready to take on all kinds of tasks.

Here are five critical elements for assembling and managing a successful cross-functional team.

1. Leadership

A capable leader can make or break a cross-functional team’s success by determining and guiding strategies and workflows. In a cross-functional team, the leader will likely be making decisions that sometimes fall outside their core competencies, so they must openly rely on all team members’ input and expertise.

2. Robust processes

Everyone on the team will have different proficiencies, so it’s important to outline how each member should start tasks, review progress, and report results. Incorporate templates, milestones, and peer review steps to surface problems early and often. 

Task management software and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are great tools that optimize the team’s workflow for transparent, organized collaboration.

3. Flexible roles

Encourage everyone to use the knowledge they’ve gained from working on your cross-functional team and explore each other’s roles. If you have a strong team of developers, let them dabble in UI/UX design while the designers try their hand at development. This reinforces cross-roll learning, encourages professional growth and creativity, and lets everyone contribute meaningfully to the project. 

4. Transparent communication

Every process and communication method should remain open and available, so all team members have access to the same crucial information. Keep SOPs in a shared folder for all to see, and include all team members, regardless of their involvement, in group chat channels. This full transparency ensures fair treatment for everyone and helps to prevent cliques or siloes from forming on your team.

5. Recognizing accomplishments

Remember to spotlight accomplishments, both as a team and individually. Set aside time during meetings to acknowledge notable progress or recognize someone who went above and beyond to deliver a goal. It’s vital that everyone feels encouraged to think past their job title, and rewarding them for that is an excellent way to encourage that mindset.

Driving growth through cross-functional collaboration

Effective cross-functional management calls for many essential ingredients — including your team’s collaboration platform. Selecting the right platform will lead to smoother operations, increased transparency, and seamless communication.

With Webflow Enterprise you can unite your team in real time in the Webflow Designer. In this fully collaborative space, each team member can leave feedback, edit content, and build website layouts with an seamless, built-in handover process.