What is cross functional? Build cross-functional team strategies

In the modern business environment, Cross functional is becoming an inevitable trend for businesses to improve operational efficiency. So what is Cross functional ? How to build an effective cross-functional team strategy? In this article, 1C Vietnam will provide useful information about cross functional. Find out now!

1. What is cross functional?

Cross functional, also known as cross-functional, is a working method characterized by cooperation between members with different skills and expertise to achieve a common goal.

Often, cross-functional teams are formed to carry out specialized projects or work that requires the combination of knowledge from many different professions. This can include members from departments such as marketing, design, sales, product development, and even representatives from outside the organization or partners.

2. Example of Cross functional team in business

A typical example of Cross functional is the establishment of a project team to develop new products for a business. In particular, members take on the following specific roles:

• Market research: Collect and analyze data to understand customers and consumer behavior.
• Product development: Based on market information, conduct research and design new products.
• Manufacturing: Collaborate with suppliers and manufacturers to manage the manufacturing process, including quality control and raw materials.
• Marketing: Create a marketing plan to introduce new products to customers.

3. Benefits of building Cross functional teams

Cross functional is an important factor in organizational success because of the following benefits that cross-functional teams bring:

3.1 Enhance creativity

Cross-functional teams bring innovation in thinking compared to traditional teams, thereby encouraging creativity across all corners of the organization, helping to effectively identify and implement improvements across the value chain. Furthermore, members with diverse professions can be a source of inspiration to help the team expand their vision, improve their problem-solving ability, create an outstanding solution, and innovate comprehensively.

3.2 Bring diversity

The biggest strength of a cross-functional collaborative team is the ability to take a multi-dimensional approach to the same problem thanks to the ideas of members in many different fields. Furthermore, cross-functional team diversity provides equal opportunity for all members of the organization, where everyone can participate and contribute to special projects.

3.3 Developing leadership skills

A key advantage of cross-functional collaboration is that it allows each employee to experience a project management role. This encourages the development of leadership skills through working in a temporary team, promoting communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution skills as required by the team. New leaders can bring innovation to work and improve future management and leadership skills.

3.4 Create a positive teamwork environment

Cross-functional teams help create a positive team environment, promoting teamwork and consensus. At the same time, Cross-functional helps build trust, strengthen cohesion, and improve work performance among members. Cross-functionality also helps break down communication barriers and promote collaboration within the organization, by allowing members to collaborate directly and coordinate different professional skills to solve problems.

3.5 Improve group performance

Improving team performance requires effective communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution. Cross-functional collaboration is the key to success, as members set personal goals in tandem with team goals. This model can be applied widely, in every organization. This is also considered a useful method that businesses can apply to improve team productivity.

4. Steps to building an effective cross-functional team strategy

Understanding the process of optimizing organizational performance is the way to build an effective cross-functional team strategy that takes full advantage of the benefits. So, how to do this most effectively? Let's learn the specific steps below to build a successful cross functional team strategy for your business.

4.1 Step 1. Identify necessary professional skills

The first step in building a cross-functional team is to clearly define the team's purpose. Businesses need to decide whether the team will focus on one specific project or take on many different projects, as well as whether the team will be permanent or temporary. Then, it is necessary to identify the technical skills needed for the team, such as content creation, budgeting, or customer relationship management.

4.2 Step 2. Recruit and select appropriate members

Based on skill requirements, the organization will select suitable members. The ability to work in a cross-functional environment is an important factor to consider, in addition to technical knowledge. Applicants will be evaluated based on the following factors:

• Collaborate well: The ability to work closely with other members is important, as cross-functional teams depend on collaboration.
• Good communication: Candidates have effective communication skills to help exchange, discuss and solve problems quickly.
• Diverse skills: Priority is given to candidates with diverse knowledge and skills, helping them understand and exchange information effectively with other members.

4.3 Step 3. Vote for the management team leader

The next step is to elect each cross functional group a competent and influential leader to lead. This leader must clearly understand the role of each professional expertise to choose the right person and take full advantage of each member's strengths. The cross-functional team leader will perform the following tasks:

• Determine and develop a work plan for the group.
• Create work schedules and assign tasks to each member.
• Monitor and ensure team performance.
• Resolve conflicts and handle problems that arise within the group.
• Make work progress reports to higher management levels.

4.4 Step 4. Establish general principles

The common code of conduct determines how members work and cooperate with each other. These principles define the roles and responsibilities of each member, thereby creating a healthy, fair, and equitable collaborative environment. The principles need to be consistent with common goals and protect the rights of all members.

The most important thing is that group regulations must be agreed upon by all members, to minimize conflicts and conflicts in the future. Therefore, management and team leaders need to listen to members' opinions, allowing employees to contribute to building common working rules for the team.

4.5 Step 5. Determine communication method

The nature of cross-functional teams is to combine members from many different departments, who often do not have the opportunity to meet and work directly. Therefore, communication methods must be clearly defined from the beginning to ensure effective work.

Means of communication and shared working environment may include online document repositories, email communication and scheduling of periodic online meetings. During this process, conflict management strategies should be proposed, such as using majority voting in cases where consensus cannot be reached.

5. The secret to building a professional Cross functional team

To build an effective Cross functional team, it not only requires professional knowledge but also requires a combination of some of the following tips:

• Choose influential members: Choose people with leadership and influence to inspire and create integration in the group.
• Promote the role of skilled professionals: Create opportunities for members with extensive knowledge to share and support each other during the work process.
• Encourage spontaneous interactions: Facilitate natural conversations between members to encourage creativity and new ideas.
• Measure performance: Ensure that members receive feedback on their work and see results from their efforts.
• Reduce the number of meetings: Limit the number of meetings and optimize meeting time to increase productivity.

6. 1C:Document Management - Support software to promote effective Cross functional teamwork

If you want to build a professional Cross functional team and promote effective teamwork, businesses should prioritize using 1C:Document Management software. This is a useful solution to help run work automatically and at the same time digitize the electronic document system in the business.

The software provides many useful features related to teamwork processes such as:

• Manage documents systematically, assigning access rights to each type of internal document for members of the Cross functional team.
• Flexible work assignment process, ensuring the right people - right jobs - right benefits, so that each team member can promote their own strengths.
• Support project management for each item and work performed.
• Easily extract work reports and send to team members.
• Manage work schedules, control the work of members of the Cross functional team in a strict and detailed manner...

With 1C:Document Management software, businesses will synchronize work processes throughout the team, promote teamwork, and optimize time and operating costs.

Thus, the article has helped businesses better understand the concept of "What is Cross Functionality" and the process of building a cross-functional team strategy. Hopefully, through the information 1C Vietnam has shared, businesses can create effective multi-functional teams, strong collaboration capabilities and bring positive results. If your business is looking for solutions to support your business in managing work and optimizing work performance, please contact 1C Vietnam immediately.