🕸️What Does It Mean to Be a Cross-Functional Teammate?
Video Version
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Defining “Cross-Functional Teammate”
A "Cross-functional" team means:
Teammates perform work across different functions
The team has no "departments" or "silos" of isolated work; they all work together
Teammates all get involved in the work together according to their agreed upon RACI responsibilities.
This is quite different from other teams. On waterfall teams, everyone is "siloed" to a specific function and only does work in that function. Agile teams who are cross-functional are a "heist team": they all get together from different backgrounds and share responsibilities across different types of work together. They work toward a shared outcome together. Learn more about cross-functional teamwork in the Agile Handbook.
Benefits of Cross-Functional Teamwork
Cross-functional teamwork has the following benefits:
It fosters environments where people feel deeper ownership in the outcomes — Giving teammates a voice and abilities to decide how they want to proceed is powerful. It encourages people to make decisions that avoid "perfection mindset" and the ability to form judgments on their own.
It allows people to grow — You don't need to be experienced to try new kinds of work if your team provides opportunities for you to do so. This is why having a "department" is limiting: it creates a sentiment that people who are in the department are dedicated to that kind of work, and anyone else is "trespassing" into the work that others should be doing. This is a false sentiment, and creates a lack of empowerment on teams. When a team decides how they want to get involved in work, the power transfers to each teammate who takes on that work.
It prevents "silos" of work and is less risky — If someone leaves the team or is added to the team, the work can continue seamlessly, and the team that self-organizes can best decide together how they want to proceed without waiting for a "boss" to tell them what to do or how to move. When teams are compartmentalized to a specific function, everyone else has to rely on that function to do their work and it creates a single point of failure on the team. When teammates share responsibility, they can always progress.
How Cross-Functional Teams Function Without Titles or Departments
Cross-functional teams, who have no "job titles" or "departments", float across responsibilities (see more here in the Agile Handbook). Whenever prioritizing work, the team gets together to organize their priorities. They all decide what they will commit to together, and each teammate decides how they want to be responsible, accountable, consulted, or informed in the work.
Agile teams use a deliverable called a RACI Chart to document these work assignments. No one tells a person what work to do, or what not to do, on a team that organizes themselves. Teammates should build a deep sense of ownership in the work outcomes so that they feel ready and willing to take on new kinds of work while being supported.
When teams are setup in this way, it really doesn't matter what a teammate labels themselves for their job title. They can call themselves a project manager but commit to all different kinds of work as a teammate. It matters what the shared team outcomes are each week, and which activities teammates commit themselves to.
With this dynamic in action, a researcher by nature gets involved in product work, or project management work. Project managers get involved in design work. Product people get involved in research work. Developers get involved in project management work. Everyone is like a bee contributing to a larger beehive. They have functions they are familiar with and functions they are less familiar with. No matter what, a teammate should be encouraged to take on new kinds of work together with others for the opportunities to grow.
This is why we the community changed out project training to have no titles.
Cross-functional Outputs
Here are the items that teams produce to perform cross-functionally:
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