How do you prove cross-functional team projects are worth it?

Create a strategic project or program with a goal that is important to the business that can only be accomplished by multiple functions working together under the direction of a cross functional project leader. Focus on eliminating conflicts between the functions and incentivizing collaboration. Do not focus on any ones teams’ operational metric. Choose a metric that all groups can contribute to. For example, CSAT. How can Sales and Service work together to improve CSAT? Why is it important to focus on CSAT? Because, satisfied customers are retained, grown, and in some cases, are advocates for your business. CSAT needs to be cross functional. If only one team is focused or goaled on it, other teams could unintentionally harm CSAT.

One of the things for cross team projects success is explaining “What’s in it for them?”. Clarifying that to other teams help get their buy-in. It also helps them prioritize it accordingly. Second part is, essentially all the teams are part of the organization they work for. It is helpful explain how a certain project is useful for the organization’s greater good. From there, one can go to defining the common OKR and KPIs to define what success looks like and how to measure the success. -Vidya.

Every project is cross functional, it takes several departments to contribute to the success of the project. The key to project success, as it has been stated to have a good project plan with assigned responsibilities. That said, some tasks are "handed over the fence" and communication can breakdown. This is where a good project manager follows up with both parties to ensure a joint task is continuing to move forward in support of the project.

Proving the value of cross-functional team projects requires establishing clear objectives and aligning them with the organization's strategic goals. To demonstrate their worth, it is essential to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) and quantify potential benefits, such as cost savings, revenue growth, and improved productivity. Building a compelling business case and obtaining leadership support is crucial to securing necessary resources and removing obstacles. Throughout the project's implementation, monitoring progress and tracking quantitative and qualitative outcomes are necessary to measure success. Conducting a post-implementation evaluation and sharing success stories foster a culture of innovation within the organization.

Host a pre-kick off working session with the likely participants of a cross-functional team. They are likely subject matter experts in their areas who understand how they will contribute. However, if they do not, a working session is a great informal way to talk through what the project is, why you're doing it, and what the proposed approach is. This is effective to establish partnerships and to ensure the proper folks are included in future meetings. I leverage this for waterfall/Agile/hybrid from a project/program perspective and would align to whatever product methodology is in place if the cross-functional team is engaging in that space. This approach works for non-project/program engagements as well. Develop a shared business case.

When a project is pre-production, using agreed-upon deliverables is a good way to track initial progress. However, as quickly as possible it’s always better to get to a point where you can start tracking progress against the business goal for which the project is aiming. Make sure you know your goal up front and have a plan to measure success. Then build an implementation plan which is iterative and expect to measure and pivot as you go. Progress should be measured by results, not arbitrary project deliverables. A team can deliver all the original “deliverables”, but if you don’t achieve your business goal or gain valuable insights, did you really make progress?

The sum has to be greater than its parts. Cross functional teams can save time, costs and pitfalls by bringing diverse stakeholders together early to align on goals and deliverables. The shared goal and outcomes serves at the baseline for the metrics. If you can't answer "what am I doing here" for a cross functional team, get this answered before going any further.

From my perspective, driving a project to success. I believe the most important aspect is Risk Management. Things will go wrong that impact Cost, Quality, On-Time Delivery or Customer satisfaction. The Project Manager working Cross-Functionally has to manage these risks. And ensure appropriate actions are taken to either mitigate the risk or take corrective actions.

This is good practice for any project. Each initiative is an opportunity for your team to improve how they “do work.” Make sure to internalize things that work and evaluate the things that didn’t.

If it can be measured it can be managed. Peter Drucker. This comes back to applying Lessons Learned after every project and figuring out what business processes can be adjusted to drive the organization to better performance.

Any “project” will have an ROI— even if it’s negative. Typically, when looking at high-value transformational projects that level up a company and drive significant revenue, customer satisfaction, churn reduction, increases in expansion, or drastically improves a product or service— it will require cross-functional teams in order to be ROI positive. Any project of this nature should have a business case with buy-in (both cross-functional and leadership), a plan, a forecast of best/worst/most likely scenarios, and a clear method & agreed upon KPIs to measure actuals against forecasts. Some results happen over a few months. Some over a few years. But it shouldn’t take too long to know if your ROI is aligning with your forecast.

As I've mentioned, I believe most projects are cross functional. When it comes to ROI. Most companies take on a project with an expectation of IRR (Internal Rate of Return). One of the factors that contributes to that is execution to a schedule to realize monetary benefits. This is why Project Management and delivering projects on-time is so important. If a project is funded, but is delayed the IRR is diminished.

A cross functional executive panel can be an excellent way to kickoff a program. When leadership articulates the importance of a program and demonstrates cross functional alignment from the start, the message for the team is powerful.

Always , always, always have a strong sponsor for cross-functional projects and have all the of the key stakeholders at the kickoff meeting with the sponsor. When the sponsor is describing the intended outcome make sure there is a transfer of power from the sponsor to the PM to ensure the cross-functional team knows that while the team will be doing the work the PM has been empowered by the sponsor to keep the train on the tracks and deliver what was spelled out in the charter.