An Interview with Lis Hubert
In the final part of our series on cross-functional teams, we talk strategy. CX by Design co-founder Lis Hubert explains how to choose the right skills and people for your team – and how to overcome challenges like prioritization and leadership support.
Let’s jump straight in and get more real-life advice on cross-functional teams!
Question: What’s the effect of a cross-functional team on product development? And especially product quality?
Lis: There is a decent body of research that points to the more diverse a team within a business is, the better the outputs of that team. Usually that diversity centers on differences in personal identity (i.e., gender, race, etc). But that diversity can also mean roles within the company. Hands down, when you work on a cross-functional team, the product/service/solution that results will be better. It will be better for more customers, which will mean better for business profits.
An example of this: One of our current clients is a very large healthcare corporation. We’re working with them to help create an updated software platform to be used by their customer service representatives and business customers. So we chose to create a cross-functional team. This team involves client members who are business analysts, subject matter experts (SMEs) of different areas, IT leads, project managers, and more. Combine this with the CX by Design team’s CX, UX, and digital strategy mindset, and you basically have all areas of the system covered. If there is an idea that we’re posing that won’t work with the tech infrastructure, we learn about it right away in our weekly calls – instead of down the road during implementation. This forces us, as a CX/UX team, to be more creative and push the boundaries of our ideas so that they not only exceed customer expectations and improve business outcomes (creating higher revenue), but also so they are cheaper and more efficient to implement (creating cost savings).
Tell us more about the gains of working with a broad range of skills.
We have people who are experts in the role (obviously), but it’s so diverse that people also have very different ideas on how to work together and how to get work done.
For example, one of our digital strategists is always considering different methods for extracting requirements from the business – a key skillset when working with a highly complex business that has a lot of moving parts. If we didn’t have this skill on our team, we might not be able to move as quickly and with as high of quality. This also makes working as a cross-functional team more fun! Members of the team get different ideas they can apply in their day-to-day work and the monotony gets broken up.
Can you speak to the importance of including frontline people in cross-functional teams?
This has been a game changer for this particular cross-functional team project. We initially scoped a typical CX effort, where we used our 10-10-10 model to do upfront research. For a corporation of this size – and with a history of working with research partners who failed to deliver on their promises – getting buy-in for upfront research wasn’t an option. Instead, we did the trojan horse method. We started our cross-functional team collaboration by creating wireframes first (a huge UX no-no!).
As we started to dig into the wireframes, our UX team asked important questions like, “How do customer service reps answer calls?” “What information do they need to see in the first 30 seconds”, etc. The client side of the team realized how much we were missing by not understanding the users of the system.
So we added a few reps from the CS team to our cross-functional team and whammo! Not only are we designing better experiences, but the client team members are more invested in their collaborations. Best of all, everyone is becoming more educated on what user issues actually exist and they are becoming invested in solving for them.
You mentioned that prioritizing workloads was a challenge for team members. Why?
Any company has a lot going on, and most of the time people are just trying to work on their particular projects and focus. Add in a new project where the work will be done differently and where collaboration and meeting time is front and center, and the current Industrial-Revolution model of office work implodes. This isn’t because people don’t want to be engaged; it’s because their paycheck is based on certain performance criteria. And if those performance criteria don’t align with the cross-functional team’s mission, these workers are forced to make hard decisions.
For a more specific example, one of the key SMEs we have on our cross-functional team committed to authoring detailed requirements, but is now finding it difficult due to other responsibilities. It’s not that they don’t want to contribute; it’s that pressure from their main role is their priority, and rightly so. This is something that a real-life cross-functional team lead needs to be aware of and anticipate because this scenario occurs more often than not.
Let’s talk about another challenge. Why is getting leadership support and resources for the project so hard sometimes?
Related to the above! Leaders are often disconnected from the day-to-day of how work gets done in their companies. This isn’t a reflection of their commitment to excellence, but rather a reflection of how unorganized some companies can be. Cross-functional teams require commitment, and proving the need for that commitment is challenging. To get ahead of this, it’s important to garner and ensure support as early in the project as possible. One way to do this is to think ahead for leadership and define in detail what supporting the project will look like for them. Will it be a once-a-week, 15-minute update call? Or maybe some sort of bi-weekly read out? Either way, leadership needs to understand not only how the work will benefit them, but what is expected of them throughout the process. In this way, you make it easy for them to get onboard.
And what would you say is one of the most overlooked parts of a successful cross-functional team?
As I mentioned elsewhere, different people have different perspectives and different criteria they are getting measured against. It can be difficult to align as a cross-functional team. As CX people, our greatest responsibility is to keep the pros of cross-functional teams in mind and use them to continuously motivate and align the team toward the same vision or goal. I’m talking every day.
As an example, we can’t just rely on other team members to “get things done” without frequently checking in with them. Remember, they are busy too! It’s good to see how they are progressing or where we may be able to take something off their plate. Being a great team member not only reflects well on you as a professional and on CX as a function, but it also leads to more successful solutions that make customers happy.
Finally, what would you like to share about building a great cross-functional team?
First, practice active listening and empathy. Consistently remind yourself that teammates who see things differently aren’t a curse, but a gift. When they don’t see things the way you want them to, it’s usually not personal or an affront to you and your work or role. It’s usually just the way their brain or role works. Embrace this, because different perspectives usually mean catching more gaps or seeing more opportunities. And these lead to better products and services for customers.
Secondly, create space. We often remind ourselves and our team that people who have a CX/UX mindset tend to see processes and systems more holistically than other roles in the company. This is because our human-centred design training forces us into a more holistic mindset. What can happen with our mindset is that we see potential solutions and fixes more quickly than those we are collaborating with. And, being designers, we jump in to save the day!
But – instead of giving in to this impulse– we encourage ourselves and others to pause and create space for others to process, consider, and contribute. We don’t throw our ideas away; rather we make room for more ideas to appear. When this happens, we can combine ideas to come up with a better path forward. Because our ideas are very biased to our perspectives, and cross-functional team collaboration is all about removing bias and broadening perspectives.
Want to Build Your Own Cross-Functional Team?
We hope you’ve found Lis’ interview insightful and inspiring. If you haven’t read it yet, check out our interview with Diana Sonis on leading cross-functional teams. And you can catch up on the other three articles in this series here.
Are you getting ready to tackle a project that requires a cross-functional team? Whether it’s managing a digital transformation or solving customer experience issues, we’re happy to help. Contact us today to see if CX by Design is the right fit for you!
