Ask People to Work as a Cross-Functional Team

Agile approaches create change across the organization. One of the biggest changes is that of cross-functional teams who have allegiance to their team and their product, not their manager. That can be scary for the team members and for management.

Managers might fear their loss of organizational power when agile approaches change the reporting structure. Managers often “lose” people who formerly reported to them. Managers might fear being unable to pluck people from one project and push them onto another project to respond to an emergency.

Sometimes people don’t want to leave their functional silos. The architects enjoy a certain status and they don’t want to give it up. The developers or UX people or testers understand how to work now. How can they work as a cross-functional team?

My advice is to not reorganize first and change who people report to. Instead, leave the reporting structure alone and ask people to work as cross-functional teams. Help the team learn how to deliver value on a regular basis. The more the team can deliver value, the easier it will be for agile ideas to take hold.