What is a Cross-Functional Team?

Learn what a cross-functional team is and why they can be so rewarding to manage.

Imagine an orchestra made up of nothing but trumpets. Imagine a baseball team of all catchers. Imagine a medical team that’s nothing but radiologists. Those aren’t good situations.

A cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. It can include people from finance, marketing, operations and HR, and other key functional areas. Employees from different levels usually participate on a cross-functional team. The team might include frontline operators, managers and directors, and you may have analysts and project managers on the team. There may be other job families involved. These teams can also include people from outside the organization like suppliers, customers, or consultants.

The important thing to note about a cross-functional team is you’re bringing together people with different experiences, different perspectives, and different skill sets to jointly solve a problem or implement an initiative. Different perspectives and skills are designed to give you a higher chance of success since you’re involving relevant experts from relevant areas.

If you get the opportunity to lead a cross-functional team, I encourage you to jump at that chance. You’re going to learn so much about different functions that you may never have experienced before and you’re going to see the power of bringing those diverse perspectives and experiences together and pointing them toward a common objective.

Want to learn more about managing cross-functional teams? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to manage a cross-functional team. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!