Review this article and give your opinion why you think CFTs fail. If you were a part of successful effort, what worked? If the effort failed, why and what would you do different?
Cross-functional teams often fail because the organization lacks a systemic approach. Teams are hurt by unclear governance, by a lack of accountability, by goals that lack specificity, and by organizations’ failure to prioritize the success of cross-functional projects (Tabrizi 2015)
Through our research, we’ve identified some golden rules of governance for PGTs: this is a great a great example of what I do on a daily basis at work with my clients. I work with multifunctional teams that include high executives, HR directors, Benefits directors, IT personnel, Payroll, ETC. This implementation of cross-functional governance has for worked for ADP and we continue to work closely with our partners to ensure the smooth Implementation of our clients.
1. Every project should have an end-to-end accountable leader. A project team leader is assigned from both sides of the organization as the main point of contact. I am the team leader from my side and I have to lead projects and talk to multiple clients on a daily basis.
2. Every project should have clearly established goals, resources, and deadlines. From day one we set a project timeline that we review weekly on our calls and we ensure we are meeting or exceeding our deadlines.
3. Teams should have the project’s success as their main objective . Both team leaders communicate daily either by email or phone to ensure we are on track, we speak often and do extra work the rest of the team doesn’t always see
4. Every project should be constantly re-evaluated . We discuss our timeline and project at every team weekly call to evaluate where we are and if we need to make changes and adjust and address and issues
References:
Tabrizi, Behnam. (2015). 75% of Cross-Functional Teams Are Dysfunctional. Retrieved From.
https://hbr.org/2015/06/75-of-cross-functional-tea…
https://hbr.org/2015/06/75-of-cross-functional-teams-are-dysfunctional
