How to Get a Cross-Functional Team Working Together

Lean enterprise management is all about collaboration across functions, across-companies, and across countries. It takes strong and focused lean leadership to pull together the disparate interests and work styles into one non-stoppable team. For many organizations, that's a big challenge. But it doesn't have to be.

Many have found the best way to get something accomplished quickly and efficiently is by pulling together a cross-functional team to tackle a challenge or to capitalize on a opportunity. Teams can meet face to face, or via conferencing software on the Web if that isn't practical. Such a team ought to include everyone who has a stake in the outcome such as representatives from each of the business units involved, design engineering, process engineering, material supply, perhaps customer service, marketing and finance--even outside suppliers.

The question that invariably arises is, how can you insure everybody on the team pulls their weight when you, as a supply chain professional, have no direct authority over any of them?

Here are five steps that have led others to success:

1. Establish ground rules at the very first meeting. Have the team agree on rules for the team such as being on time, having an agenda and sticking to it, frequency of meetings, and informing others immediately if an agreed-upon deadline will not be met. These become bylaws that can be distributed to all team members and placed in a team handbook that will serve as a record and be used for reference.

2. Use Action Reports to assure accountability and to create urgency to complete tasks. Rather than publishing rambling meeting notes, publish only the tasks the team has decided need to be accomplished. As part of this, you need to document who is responsible and the completion dates they have agreed-upon.

3. Action Reports should be distributed to all team members and to the executives in upper management who have stakes in the outcome of the team's work. Seeing their names in such an e-mail or in print and knowing others are aware of what they have promised to do will spur team members to complete their tasks.

4. Each team meeting should begin with an Action Report review. Those who were assigned tasks should be asked to give a report on where they stand. This should be clearly indicated on an agenda which ought to have been sent out ahead of the meeting. (The agenda serves as a second reminder in addition to the action report.) Knowing a report will have to be given to the whole group will create peer pressure to perform.

5. Action Reports should be updated after each meeting. When commitment dates are met, this should be noted. Inserting a few words of praise for a job well done also will encourage everyone to perform. When a deadline is missed or moved, this should be tactfully indicated as well. A person who dropped the ball is likely to go the extra mile next time to insure it doesn't happen again.

In summary, you may not have direct authority over other team members, but you can still motivate them to get the job done by shining a light on them and what they've taken on and have accomplished.

Click here for more information about the book these ideas came from, Lean Enterprise Leader: How to Get Thinks Done without Doing It All Yourself.