Are Cross Functional Teams Effective?

The current company I work for is an outsourcing startup software company. We are currently defining the team reporting structure and agreed on teams such as architecture, development, program management etc. It would require lot of co-operation between people and I’m not sure if this is good for a startup. Please advise.

The Team Doc Says…

Setting up the organization by function is not a bad thing although it can trip up an organization if there are ego wars or power trips by any of the leaders. There has to be some sort of structure in the organization. If this functional team set up results in a bunch of hand offs that is not a good thing either.

The way it will work the best is to have cross functional teams for projects. Team members from each functional area should be selected to complete a project from start to end and team members can be assigned to many cross functional teams. Of course someone has to carefully monitor resources to make sure a single team member doesn’t get spread too thin.

Best regards,

Denise O’Berry
aka “Team Doc”