Cross-functional teams — groups consisting of people from different functional areas of the company such as marketing, product and sales — can be effective working groups. However, it’s not always possible for these varied functions to physically engage in the teamwork and collaboration needed in the workplace. That challenge has always existed in firms with distributed workforces, and today, with many organizations choosing to maintain remote or hybrid work environments, the challenge has only increased.
As early as July 2020, 80% of business leaders had already decided to allow remote work to continue after the pandemic, and many are formalizing those plans now. To help organizations facilitate collaboration between these disparate groups, shrewd business leaders are turning to Microsoft Teams. Teams offers numerous features and functions that support and propel cross-functional collaboration, whether within a single facility or dispersed around the globe. In this article, we’ll cover the ones our experts identified as offering significant value.
Editor’s note: At the recent Ignite 2021 Conference, Microsoft delivered a list of new announcements that will propel cross-functional team collaboration even further. We’ll detail them in an upcoming newsletter.
Cross-Functional Team Collaboration in Action
Microsoft has expended considerable effort ensuring Microsoft Teams was ready for prime-time. Today, it is well equipped to promote collaboration and achievement among cross-functional teams. Following are some of the more useful options, from our perspective:
Create Goals Across Cross-Functional Teams
After identifying a cross-functional team goal such as improving customer satisfaction, create a Teams Channel to share ideas and host a monthly check-in meeting.
Encourage Cross-Functional Communities
Use Microsoft Teams to create a space for cross-functional team members with similar interests to share ideas, knowledge and resources.
Create a Cross-Functional Planner Board
Planner offers total flexibility regarding what teams can plan. To create a new plan that can track cross-functional activities and goals in Planner, a team member working within any channel simply selects Add a tab, clicks Planner, selects Create a new plan or Use an existing one and clicks Save.
With a Planner board, cross-functional teams can perform a variety of tasks:
Channel Cross Posting
Team members can post a single message in multiple channels at the same time. For example, in a software company, engineering could send a single message to notify marketing, product and sales departments concurrently that coding for in-demand features had passed testing and would be rolled out in the next release.
Final Thoughts
Cross-functional collaboration improves business performance by helping firms and their teams experience the benefits of scale, explore new ideas, and improve interpersonal and interdepartmental engagement. When companies break down functional silos through collaboration, they are also better equipped to foster innovation. To explore what other benefits Microsoft Teams could provide for your firm, current clients can discuss with their Strategic Advisor at any time. Not a client at this time? Contact jim.higgins@itsolutions-inc.com or call us at 1-866-PICKITS.
We’ve got answers — fast, clear, and tailored to your needs. Let’s talk tech.
