Cross functional collaboration — From 0 to 1

New team alignment

Approximately 9 months ago our product didn’t exist and unsurprisingly neither did the team around it. We have gone from no product and no team to product launch and a team that is has good open communication and alignment.

Note — I am not going to talk about how to build a new product or launch it, this post is to describe our experience of cross-functional working.

Earlier this year a product squad was formed around an idea — At this point it had been tested as a feature in a sister product but was somewhat hidden away. To give it room to breathe and truly cater for the customer needs, problems and wants it needed to be a product in its own right.

3 Engineers decided they would take up the challenge along with a pair extremely strong BAs (with huge SME knowledge) and myself. Having worked with all of the individuals previously it was a seamless fit…

BUT without customers the product is worthless, why bother building it.

Bring on the Commercial, Marketing, Customer Success and Onboarding teams!

What each team delivers

Before we look at how we work together lets look at what each team delivers at its core.

Commercial

• Wealth of experience as a sales team
• SME knowledge of the domain, in particular the politics and semantics around the buyer and their perceptions
• Forward thinking, able to drive process improvements

Marketing

• Cross domain experience — able to bring a unique spin on health-tech
• Strategic approach combining multiple campaigns and touch points to a singular goal
• Ability to execute, test and iterate

Customer Success

• Always keeping in touch with our customers
• Huge presence in our UK market
• Able to push our product as a cross-sell and get time with the right audience
• A single point of contact for our customers

Onboarding

• Experienced across all products
• Provide a single point of contact when onboarding
• Coordinate onboarding for multiple stakeholders
• Drive customers to activate

PENG (Product & Engineering)

• Diverse team with different domain backgrounds
• Excellent at working together to develop solutions
• Strong communicators — Make sure all stakeholders are on the same page

By yourself you cannot achieve your product goals. It’s likely you will fall short, however with a team of experts your chances are greatly increased. Work together.

Now we know the teams and what they do lets look at how we work today…

How we work

At first it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it took a minute for us all to be on the same page. We had disagreements, different focusses and very different ways of working. Here is how we work now and what works for us:

• We have a group slack — This is our main communication tool. Its important to have a space away from the rest of the company to have focussed (and sometimes heated) chats. We keep each other up to date here and also post new ideas and thoughts.
• Product Strategy — As a group we have worked to define our product strategy. All teams have inputted into its ‘build’. This is used to give clarity and direction, it should underpin all the short term goals we are looking to achieve.
• OKRs — We haven’t defined these as well as we would like and (I think) they are due a refresh but we do have combined shorter term goals to aim for. We experiment as a group and as individual teams to affect them.
• Working group sessions — Bi-weekly we have working group sessions built in where updates are given on progress plus blockers are raised and discussed. This is a good time for us all to check our alignment, its also important for us all to be in the same ‘virtual room’.
• Team updates — The product team hosts review sessions to share the latest feature builds. The Commercial, Marketing and CS teams also have their own sessions. These are attended by all. They give a detailed perspective of what each team has been doing.
• Core (unspoken) pillars — We have some unspoken pillars that we all seem to naturally adhere to (at least this is how I see it). Honesty — This is both when giving feedback and when giving updates, there is no time to sugar coat anything, we say it how it is. Openness — Along with honesty we are open with the rest of the group, we share as much we can as often as we can. Committed — We all have the same goal in mind and are committed equally to the products success. Trust — Linking to the above, we trust that we can be open and honest without it coming back on us; we resolve the problems together instead of blaming each other.

In summary

Cross-functional working doesn’t happen overnight and you can always improve it. We started off a bit rocky as a team but have managed to find our lane and no doubt things will change (for the better) as time goes by.

What works for us might not work for you so experiment which different ways of working and don’t be afraid to change.