Here's how you can effectively lead cross-functional teams as an engineer.

I hope we have been experiencing in our various workspaces that more are required from Engineers to function very well. It is not enough to have all the technical skills. Soft skills have become very essential and pivotal to the success of every engineering endeavor. To lead a cross-functional skill is very demanding and requires some special skills. 1. Understand individual differences and consider them when relating to them 2. Be an active listener and ask questions, don't assume. 3. Understand individual limitations. One cap does not fit all. 4. Be a cheerleader. Always motivate people to work These and other initiatives I have deployed in the past to ensure my cross-functional teams are in high spirits and able to deliver

I like to add a bit of organizational capabilities to the aspect of understanding roles. Ask questions regarding risk and resilience of the overall team members. How would we adjust roles and responsibilities should an unplanned event occur? Do we have a healthy bit of redundancy so that work does not grind to a halt should someone be taking a vacation? Which team members can effectively pair up (pair programming) and model behaviors and demonstrate the advantages for others unfamiliar or uncomfortable with pairing?

Some things I find helpful is creating detailed organizational charts as this helps me capitalize on team skills and find common ground among team members and to include the best people for the project. I establish clearly defined roles through the contributions/perspective of the team members leading to project owners, as this aids my team members understand their role in the process and ownership of the project. Emphasis is made on project management and office communication tools to enhance collaboration . I build trust amongst the team members and develop plans and time for the project.

As a leader my role is not always to set objectives - that often comes from the product owner and customer proxies. What is helpful in establishing objectives is to engage the team in the discussion as they are contemplated and bring their input and ideas to how best to accomplish the objectives and SMART goals. Nothing worse than a leader issuing objectives, with little discussion, in a Command and Control approach no matter how SMART they are. This is really demotivating and even disrespectful to the talents of the team.

I like to iterate on the approaches to foster collaboration. A workshop might be fine 1 or 2 times per year. But best to mix it up for the team, e.g., social activities outside of work, volunteering for a good cause as a team (think Habitat for Humanity) and attending a trade show together. I have found variation in activities can bring colleagues together to know and trust each other. Trust is the currency of collaboration!

So many managers and leaders are terrible at conflict resolution. No matter how good you might think you are I'll bet there's area for improvement. Take a course, participate in a workshop where you actually role play different conflicts. Be mindful of the cultural aspects of work in our global supply chains. Your approach should be empathetic to regional/local cultures of your team members. Going against local culture can undermine your ability to manage conflicts.

Another important point in empowering and securing your team is to agree on task priorities and then stick to the agreed schedule; injecting tasks affects the agreed delivery time, and this will always put your team under stress and frustrate them. If it is a must to inject new tasks, we have to document everything related to this process, the old agreed delivery time for the original time, the expected delivery time for the new tasks, the impact on the old tasks, the new expected delivery time for the old tasks, the overall effect on the full plan.

Let’s see this process/sequence/cycle visualized. I compare this to a variation of a feedback loop. If these steps to the cross-functional engineering methodology are the spokes, then the hub should possibly include: outcome/deliverable/impact. As such, an engineer can traverse the cycle depending on the situation/circumstance to achieve the intent/scope/requirement.