Unlocking the Secret Weapon of Cross-Functional Collaboration: Lessons to Supercharge Your Product Teams
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” — Henry Ford
Imagine your favorite sports team is about to play the most important match of the year. And all of a sudden, instead of playing as a cohesive unit focused on winning, they play to boost their individual stats. Chaos ensues — communication breaks down, trust fails, roles are no longer clear, no one is accountable for executing the plays, and positional silos appear. Would they win? Absolutely not! Sound ridiculous? Very much so. Then why do we accept it when we are building products?
Unlike a sports team who trains together to win together, product teams (design, product, engineering) often train alone to be the best at what they do. Forget about the other areas — customer success, marketing, sales, etc. It’s seen as one long chain of handoffs; instead, it should be a continuous collaboration. Each team might even celebrate its wins independently. And despite this, we still expect the product to come together as an amazing, integrated whole.
The mess that is collaboration in product management
Why does this happen? Building products is a messy proposition. It involves complex and often difficult communications, divergent thinking, individuals with ambitions, orchestrating ambiguity, personality management, relationships, siloed organizations, and team dynamics. And that’s before you even start building the product itself.
Yet people, product managers included, often believe building a product follows a neat, clean, clear path. Nothing is further from the truth. Cross-functional collaboration can be a real headache. It’s chaotic and messy. And it’s the product manager’s job to harmonize the team, turning the chaos and messiness into a work of art known as the product.
Coordinating the chaos, managing the mess, and pulling together the people is a product manager’s first and most important job. Yet all too often, this skill doesn’t make it onto the requirements for a job in product management. It’s time for that to change.
How do you turn cross-functional collaboration into a secret weapon?
Product teams that establish clear roles, foster open communication, embrace divergent perspectives, set measurable goals, and build trust among team members outperform those who do not. And notice how none of it has to do with the product development process. Instead, the team foundation comes first. And the foundation is built on an ability to feel safe around each other, trust one another, be transparent, and effectively communicate.
At this point, it would be so easy (and tempting) to create a bulleted list explaining each element that goes into the foundation. But there is already plenty of information out there on things like creating clear roles or building trust. So instead, I will share how cross-functional collaboration can be a secret weapon once the foundation is in place.
Done right, cross-functional collaboration increases speed, reduces complexity, pairs back rework, and leads to improved outcomes. And it’s for this reason that cross-functional collaboration is a secret weapon. Put plainly, most teams and companies don’t get it right. In fact, they often get it wrong enough that it holds them back. So by focusing on cross-functional collaboration, establishing a solid team foundation first, and putting the mechanisms to maintain those dynamics in place, you will be ahead of your competition.
Who gets it right?
The question then becomes, who gets it right if it’s so hard? Atlassian and Spotify are two examples often shared. So let’s take a look to see what we can learn.
One of the best examples of collaboration at a large software company is Spotify. The Swedish music streaming giant has gained widespread recognition for its approach to enabling effective cross-functional collaboration.
And while the Spotify Model uses several key principles, there are a few I believe contribute to their ability to collaborate effectively:
- Autonomous Squads: Spotify organizes its teams into small, cross-functional groups called “squads.” Each squad is responsible for a specific part of the product and has the autonomy to make decisions to choose the best way to achieve its objectives. This allows squads to work independently, respond quickly to changes, and minimize bureaucratic overhead. To succeed, these squads must have the ability to collaborate.
- Tribes, Chapters, and Guilds: To maintain collaboration and knowledge sharing among squads, Spotify introduced three additional structures. “Tribes” are groups of squads working on related areas of the product. “Chapters” are functional groups within a tribe that shares a specific skill set (e.g., developers, designers, or testers). “Guilds” are informal, cross-tribe communities focusing on a particular topic or technology. Tribes, Chapters, and Guilds create opportunities for teams to get to know each other before they are thrown into the fray together.
- Strong Leadership: Spotify emphasizes servant leadership, where leaders focus on supporting their teams and removing obstacles to collaboration. This approach promotes trust, open communication, and a shared sense of ownership and responsibility, all critical to effective collaboration.
- Culture of Learning and Experimentation: Spotify encourages a culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and improvement. Teams are empowered to try new ideas, learn from failures, and share their knowledge with others. This culture fosters innovation and helps maintain a strong collaborative environment.
The Spotify Model has been widely praised for its effectiveness in fostering collaboration. However, it’s worth noting that there may be better options for some teams or organizations. Each company should adapt and tailor the principles to suit its culture, structure, and goals. By promoting autonomy, encouraging knowledge sharing, fostering a learning culture, and emphasizing agile principles, Spotify has achieved impressive levels of collaboration and innovation within its large organization.
Invest in your teams and their foundation to create a culture where cross-functional collaboration thrives.
📌 Follow me on:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-utz/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@prodlabio/featured
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prodlabio
