What are the best ways to communicate with cross-functional teams?

The answer heavily depends on what's meant by "cross-functional teams": we can cover two cases. In case, you're Product person within the team. Here it's important to develop personal connection, understand motivation of Team Lead, cause you'll have to work closely together. Similar approach is with designer, analyst and other crucial people on the team. Understanding what kind of personalities of your team members, and people from other functions, their goals, will help tremendously in finding a win-win solutions. Identifying expectations toward your role will also help shaping your collaboration.

Innovation happens when people with different views work together. When minds from various backgrounds come together, we can be more creative and find answers that one person alone might not. Learning and growing is constant when we work with colleagues from different cultures and areas. It helps us learn new things, gain skills, and understand more about the world. Complex challenges need different approaches, and when we work together, we become better at finding solutions. Better communication comes from collaborating with people from different areas. Talking and working with colleagues who have different perspectives helps us share ideas better and understand each other more.

Understand everyone's incentives As Charlie Munger says ""Show me the incentive, and I will show you the outcome." Each crss functional partner has specific incentives which may not always 100% align with the broader business goals. Understanding what overlas and what is uniqe amongst cross functional teams is the key to unlocking synergies. They need to be given the comfort that their specific objectives are not going to be ignored in the larger scheme of things. The other big piece is complete transparency in communication. there should be no silos where the communication is exclusive to only a few people.

One of the key skills when working with, and communicating with, a cross functional team is to get early alignment on things like outcomes, roles, and responsibilities. It's most critical when you may be asking members of the team to do something which feels like extra work to them at face value. When you align on the outcomes, you can usually show that the project is a win for them too, which then gets them bought in to the project from the start rather than trying to pull them across the finish.

Cross-functional collab is a bit of an art form. From a PM's pov, it's not just about tasks; it's about developing personal connections. Knowing what drives each team member, what makes them tick, and what might not resonate with them—those insights can truly make or break "seamless" collaboration. Regularly touching base with team members is crucial. It's not just about the big picture; it's about understanding the day-to-day challenges they face. It's more about knowing them on a personal level, understanding their personalities. After all, everyone's different, right? When you get that, when you truly understand what holds them back or where they excel, handling any roadblocks or issues becomes a whole lot easier.

Depending on pre-agreed ways of working, you may consider to use a mix of the following channels (beware those depend on organisation & team): 1. Use regular meetings for majority of information exchange and work, those include stand-ups, planning, demo, refinements, 1-1s, etc. In case they are not enough, don't suit your and your team's needs, consider revisit them in retrospective. 2. Offline channels are great for avoiding having additional meetings, while saving time in the meeting to clarify / agree on sth - messages via Slack, Teams, Emails are good fit. 3. Finally, in case additional alignment required or there is an urgency on the topic, jumping on the call is the best fit, however ask yourself if other ways can't fit here better

Know when it's time to have a 1on1 conversation. In the era of virtual meetings with many people, especially in working with cross functional teams, sometimes a one off conversation with the right person can make all the difference.

One example I have seen that works very well is to show that you respect their time by offering multiple time slots that could possibly work and being flexible on their availability. Also being on time is very critical as it shows that you value their time.

In my experience, there is no one channel of communication that works with all teams. I find 1:1 communication (instant messaging) effective for individual discussions and conflict resolution. An in-person meeting will help thrash out a lot more. Minuting every discussion or updating it in any project management tool that is in use helps align. A structured way to communicate with and among developers, testers, and designers via various project management tools should be emphasised. In-person or online group meetings for daily standups, sprint planning, etc. help align. Periodic updates and proactive communication for a larger audience can be across multiple mediums, like email, an updates page, a news letter, or a town hall.

Choosing the right channel not only depends on the type of communication but also the person being addressed. Typically people higher in the hierarchy prefer more concise formats and media, for example a text message with critical inputs will be appreciated more than an email with tons of data for them to respond with a quick feedback. Similarly an effort estimate for deployment of resources may need detailed scoping rather than just a count of applications to be deployed and location of work.

A big challenge that most of Technical Product Managers face when communicating to other teams, specially business teams, is to avoid jargon/terminology and assume that everyone understands or are interested in the small details of the technology of what they are building. You should focus your time not in the how you will solve something in detail, but in: - What problem you are solving, - For whom you are solving it, - Why is a problem, - Why it needs to be solved (Business case around it) - How your solution compares to others and is the best one in the relevant metrics (the most robust approach many times is not worth or not fast enough).

Clear communication , is the key leadership skill. Long talks do not help. What helps is short, clear and concise messaging .

A simple rule I like to follow is that if you're having trouble explaining the concept longer than a page, then its not enough for a cross functional team to execute. If you come across a problem like this, consider breaking up the problem into stages and tackling each as a single pager. It may be phased but once completed it will definitely be a more sustainable solution and make it a more consistent process.

In my experience this is the most critical aspect of communication. You can lose an audience if the message is unclear or can easily be forgotten. I have seen many people being successful because of clear and concise communication. That goes from a clear message, to how you convey that message in e-mails and power points.

Do not underestimate the cost of unclear communication. A simple misunderstanding can result in a big team wasting several days working on the wrong thing, that's lost productivity and will squeeze your project deadline. The higher you are up the hierarchy, the greater the impact of lost productivity due to unclear communication.

Listening skills especially active listening plays a crucial role for timely deliverables and helps in avoiding the never ending loop of email chains on fixing the scope. Teams/Individuals generally tend to dominate the brainstorming/ dicusssions and interrupt without letting the point in discussion to get finished. Simple behaviourial changes such as not forming opinions prematurely and avoiding the rush to fill every pause during team calls can accrue to larger colloborative success.

Let me give you a scenario how to listen and empathize with cross-functional teams. For example, During a sprint review, listen actively to developers' concerns about tight timelines. Instead of dismissing, empathize with their workload and collaboratively explore solutions. Acknowledge the challenges they face and express genuine understanding. This builds trust and fosters a collaborative atmosphere, demonstrating that you value their input. By incorporating their perspectives into decision-making, you strengthen the team's cohesion and commitment to shared goals. This approach ensures that communication is not only informative but also emotionally resonant, fostering a positive and productive team dynamic.

As an early career product manager, I learned early on that walking into a room and mostly asking thoughtful , well-crafted questions instead of immediately sharing ideas or making recommendations was an effective method to build rapport, trust and credibility with a new cross-functional team. That approach has served me well.

I would rate having empathy, understanding their challenges and perspectives as the topmost thing to keep in mind while working cross functionally. In addition, enrolling everyone in the vision/strategy by inviting them to be an active contributor early in the process also helps. For ex, if you are brainstorming on building your roadmap - invite your engineering, design, research & data teams to also attend and actively engage. In addition to getting great inputs on the roadmap, it will develop appreciation for the viewpoints of all the functions.

It is absolutely important to take a moment to understand the emotion behind why a stakeholder is talking in a particular way. For instance, a Customer Success Manager might have just got off a client call and faced their wrath because one of the features that we had shipped didn't solve their problem as we had promised. In such cases, a pause to reflect on "if there could be any reason why the CSM is talking in that way" might help you emphatize better and help keep your emotions in check.

There are a few ways you may ensure alignment with team: - Pre-work as product manager with main stakeholders and leadership to align on goals (OKRs, KPIs) would be essential to ensure shared goals - Quarterly/yearly workshops to share goals, vision, collaborate on execution and make adjustments together based on team's goals - Regular review/demo & retrospective sessions with whole team to collect feedback, make adjustments to the process - Regular planning/discovery sessions to boost collaboration and thinking as one team - Project kick-offs are perfect to align everyone on acceptance criteria, rollout approach, timing and resources

Different situations require varied forms of collaboration depending on the problem or requirement in hand. But, what's essentially key is - Empathising with the stakeholders involved - Communicating in a transparent and collaborative manner - Listening to opinions and feedback voiced - Validating and making trade offs - Making the decision Given that the PM is like the anchor and is responsible for ensuring all the key stakeholders are on the same page, It's crucial to voice the vision and goals clearly on a regular basis so the entire team is on board on the larger agenda. Once that's clear, transparent communication in whichever form will instill a sense of inclusion, validation and collaboration amongst teams.

For effective communication among cross-functional teams, working as a team is first. For this, we can take the following steps: -Always be transparent to each team with a clear vision and statement. Always clarify expectations with reasons to other teams. No blame should take place. -Arrange an alignment call at least weekly with team leaders to keep every team at the same pace. -Show the highest empathy to every team member when blockers or issues arise. -If any team takes any significant steps or achieves success, celebrate it with others.

Be the stakeholder's stakeholder. You can't go wrong by reversing roles. Other teams/members of such teams will greatly appreciate your work and collaborate better with you.

There is a series of tools to help you with that. Might be beneficial to use a Lean canvas to align product vision and key points. Prioritization with business areas and technical areas are also very important and the responsible for the product must be available to help with teams business questions, if that is hard to to, try to keep weekly agendas in order to book a specific amount of time only for that.

It's crucial to have clear agreement on the format and ways for everyone to stay up to date. Product manager is not the only responsible person for taking care for follow-up and update, however is the one responsible for outcome of the product development. It can be a channel or group in Slack / Teams or email newsletter. What to share in the channel: all the agreements and outcomes of discussions. The refined agreement has to be documented in one place too: usually it's an epic in Jira or page in Confluence / Notion, so everyone has access to single-source-of-truth. Regular meetings might be helpful too to collect more instant feedback (e.g. stand-ups for a few weeks during rollout).

This stage is the most important because it involves stakeholder management. In other words, managing expectations, aligning, and providing visibility on the topic. I usually tell my teams that we have to answer these questions: 1. What is the status of the initiative: on track, delayed, blocked, or deprioritized? 2. Reason for the status: a. If delayed: what caused the delay? what actions have been taken? do we have a short-term solution? b. If blocked: what is the reason? Who can help? c. If deprioritized: who made the decision? When was it made? What was the motivation?

In cross-functional teams, maintaining a seamless flow of communication is essential to ensure everyone is aligned and informed. Creating a collaborative communication environment involves collective responsibility 1. Establish dedicated channels or groups on platforms like Slack, and Teams. 2. Translate verbal agreements into written documentation (use JIRA / Notion / Confluence etc) 3. It is important to encourage team members to actively participate by providing feedback. Whether through designated channels or during meetings. Overall, Effective communication within cross-functional teams is a shared responsibility.

Clarity in Vision: Clearly articulate your vision, goals, and priorities. Ensure everyone understands and embraces the common direction. Frequent Communication: Regularly communicate updates, keeping everyone informed and aligned with the overarching objectives. Inclusive Decision-Making: Involve your team in decision-making. Solicit input and feedback regularly, fostering a collaborative atmosphere. Leverage Expertise: Tap into the collective expertise, skills, and creativity of your team. Encourage collaboration to maximize the team's potential. Empower Ownership: Empower team members to take ownership and responsibility for their tasks. Cultivate a sense of accountability within the team.

It's unfortunate, but too many times the focus is on the delivery of a product or feature, and then all communication stops. Continued communication regarding learnings, trends, successes, and demonstrating what actual value has been delivered to internal and external customers is key in building trust cross-functionally.

Apart from this, what has worked for me is to bring in the entire cross-functional team for your product together regularly and treat them as founding members. This enables various cross functions to talk to each other and own the problem statements. This also eliminates need for the PM to be the messenger between the various teams.

Showcase your value to gain trust. Bring domain expertise, product expertise and an uncanny ability to learn in order to build trust with xfn partners at all levels and then get few early wins in to crystallize and scale those relationships.

Three of many things to consider when communicating across functions: 1. Speak their language Use pixels, padding, alignment, etc to a designer Use boundary conditions, validation, expected outcome to a QA Use regular expression, query, API verbs to a developer These resonate better and avoids gap in understanding especially when communicating cross functionally across experience levels. 2. Listen more, talk less Avoid taking a stand or letting out your stand first. Listen to all the opinions and share your thoughts for better validation. It takes time but worth it. 3. Show and tell Instead of being vocal about pointers, show it using flows, other products, references from Internet, etc

While rest all is fine, and probably the "recommended" theoretical way, there is one simple tactical advice that most people miss --> Over communicate --> Over communicate --> over communicate Your priorities are not necessarily their priorities , or dare I say it is most certainly not.

I'd recommend getting folks out of the office or doing something beyond a meeting. I've worked closely with one very friendly and well-regarded airline and they've mastered this. They understand how vital interpersonal connections are for their success. Remote "events" can be tough, so planning something engaging requires a bit more work. Helping people to connect beyond work can be a great help. Getting to know and value each other pays dividends when the work gets demanding and pressure is high.