Cross-Pollinated Strategy

Leaders know where they’re going, but their engineers know where they are. We've seen how operating at different altitudes can challenge organizations to truly grasp their capabilities and constraints. To shape well-founded decisions, we recommend cross-pollinating big strategic decisions across many levels of an organization.

THE DISCONNECT

Sometimes, leaders from our clients make decisions without fully understanding the actual situation. Developers who work directly with a system usually know exactly what changes would be easy or difficult to make. Leaders might plan to take the company in a new direction. However, they may not realize changing their current systems will carry X amount of risk or require X amount of investment.

The tough thing about making software is that you learn a lot while building it. This means you need to understand some important things before you start making big decisions AND keep learning and sharing as the team executes. As everyone learns more, leadership might see that unwinding a big decision could save money or be better for the organization. The main aim is to use everyone’s time/energy/focus efficiently. The only way to accomplish this is to have a cross-pollinated context.

At large organizations, project or product managers facilitate the planning process. That’s not a problem per se, but if they’re the sole connection between individual contributors and leadership, communication breakdowns are likely to happen. Even if it doesn’t happen every week, leaders and individual contributors must connect directly and routinely to share perspectives and walk each other through their thinking.

BUILD YOUR OWN CROSS-POLLINATED STRATEGY

Don’t just solve this problem with one tactic; use many. We recommend starting with the basics to increase cross-team collaboration. Make sure teams from different departments meet regularly. Encourage everyone to speak up. Share updates with the company. Always act on feedback. You can take it further by trying these practices:

• Shadow Each Other: Organize days where employees shadow each other despite being in completely different departments. This firsthand experience promotes empathy, breaks down silos, and sparks innovative ideas. It exposes employees to different aspects of the business they wouldn't normally see.
• Host Open Strategy Meetings: Occasionally, host strategy meetings where employees from various levels participate or observe. This transparency demystifies decision-making processes. It allows for a broader range of input. This makes strategies robust and understood across the organization.
• Grab Lunch: Take it out of the office and/or home office. Enter an informal environment where any topic is welcome, relationships strengthen, and everyone is having fun.
• Idea Incubators: Set up internal platforms or events similar to hackathons. Employees can pitch new ideas or solutions to existing problems. You can reward and use the best ideas. This encourages proactive problem-solving and innovation from all levels of the organization.
• Digital Suggestion Box with Follow-up: Use a digital suggestion system where employees can submit ideas or feedback anonymously. Update the status of each suggestion. Share the outcomes by including a follow-up feature. Value every contribution; this makes the process transparent.
• Strategic Listening Tours: Senior leaders should conduct periodic "listening tours." During these tours, they should informally chat with employees across different departments and levels. They can gather insights and feelings about the organization's direction and operations, surfacing valuable feedback that might not emerge through formal channels.

Leaders can customize processes and practices to fit their organization’s culture and needs. Practices promoting collaboration and communication among teams from different departments contribute to a clearer understanding of the organization's true capabilities.