Think about how military units have evolved and why? But what does this have to do with business you ask? Well, let’s look at how business teams have evolved in the same manner. Decades ago, there only used to be rifleman with rifleman. Grenadiers used to only be with grenadiers. Now in the modern Army unit you have rifleman, machine gunners, engineers, communications experts, interpreters, medics etc. Slowly but surely business is now doing the same. It’s common for heads of departments to have meetings and then assign tasks to employees in their own departments. C-suite ranks might all meet together but they too go off and have workers underneath them whom they allocate tasks to. Cross-functional teams are making headlines, quite literally as Inc. reports that these types of teams are more likely to be higher performing. But why is this starting to become the trend?

High-performing, stamina and diverse skills

Your business will have multiple projects that need to be completed. Often times it is best to keep most of your tasks within departments. Why? Well, if you have a task that has a key objective to design a new product, then this should be tasked to the design department. How can a marketing or human resources department help you design a new innovative product? They can’t, so you need to stick within the boundaries of your experts in the design field. However, what if you have a project that is more broad, and perhaps specific to a client? Then you need to form a team that can do it all, and meet the exact needs of the client.

Inherently this means that spaces within the team are going to be limited. You can’t have whole departments work on one project, that would be an abject failure of the proper use of resources. Therefore you can only choose the best of the best from each department. This inherently means the team you form for specific projects is going to be full of high quality people. The higher the quality, the better the end result is going to be. As reported in Inc., cross-functional teams have diverse skills, and because they are more likely to be made of high-performing individuals, they have more stamina to endure and complete tasks on time and under pressure.

Common pain points

The main reason why cross-functional teams are being formed for unique projects is because businesses want their products and or services to have broad appeal. MIT reports that one way you can achieve this is to govern the team by focussing on common pain points. Firstly you need to agree over what the core problems that the projects faces. This is not as easy as it might sound because the various people in the team all have different perspectives. They come from different and sometimes even opposing backgrounds which is great for robust discussion and problem-solving.

Sometimes you cannot reach a solution that is suitable for the current tools you have. Therefore you might need to create totally new and unique tools for the team to complete their task. That’s why you should employ a software development company that can create unique software for your needs from the ground up. No other company can duplicate the exact software you are using so the chance of being entirely one-of-a-kind is very high. During the design phase of your new tool, each person in the team can give you their advice on what they think is best for the overall task. Collaboration between differing minds can lead to cutting edge and maybe even groundbreaking advances in your respective industry.

Scalability is easier

Not every person is going to be satisfied in the team. It’s cross-functional and that often means it will be a jack of all trades but not quite the master of any. Therefore you can do gradual persistent upgrades to a project, product or service as you grow and grow. This Forbes article mentions the scalability advantage isn’t just cost-effective but you also have time on your hands to evolve. Since the project is going to be multi-dimensional from the beginning, as long as the core goal is able to be achieved, then the smaller objectives can gradually be met also. For example your unique product performs a key function, but you would like to improve the material used. This can occur overtime and the scaling of versions and pricing can follow suit.

Cross-functional teams are full of the vest best people in any given business and are formed to meet a unique challenge. The task will be tough but you have many different minds that can approach it in their unique way.