What are the challenges and considerations of such a position? How can cross-functional project management and team coordination be effective without hierarchical links? Explore the key elements that will shift the dynamics of your project management approach.
The project manager is responsible for project management and operations. This requires creating a dedicated team with members from various departments who each have different skill sets and have no hierarchical connections, whether they are internal or external to the company.
This matter is often seen as a challenge but actually it has the potential to enhance project management outcomes. Indeed, it can inspire a fresh team dynamic built on openness and shared responsibility.
The challenge will be to:
To accomplish this, you’ll need proactive team members and a committed sponsor.
The first challenge of not being part of the same team is the lack of proximity. The team members often don’t share the same office, may be located on different sites and don’t always have the same schedules or organizational structure. So, how can this be managed successfully?
It is essential to find time for the team to work together on various topics. Beyond the necessary weekly update, team members should schedule group or sub-group work sessions as needed to address operational needs.
To dedicate time for team members without creating conflicts with their main tasks and responsibilities, it is important for the sponsor to engage and reach an agreement with the team members’ supervisors. This makes sure that the necessary resources are provided. The project manager and supervisors must align efforts to ensure activities don’t conflict with each other.
To overcome the lack of proximity, it’s important for all working members to quickly access any information they need. The project manager (PM) or PMO will make sure that everyone’s work is accessible, organized and shared, with centralized data. Ideally, a shared tool should be set up for tracking progress, facilitating communication and providing task assignments. This tool should provide a full picture of project progress.
Furthermore, to address the different work structures of each team member, it is important to establish a simple and well-defined organization. The project manager should ensure that it is adapted to suit everyone’s needs, using ergonomic and intuitive tools.
It’s quite challenging to manage operations when stakeholders are not fully dedicated to the project. Besides the limited daily and weekly time that team members can spare, they often have other priorities that can impact the roadmap. Their main tasks may come first, causing potential delays, missed information or unclear project progress.
The key here is to ease everyone’s workload by:
It’s really important that the project’s structure and stages are perfectly clear. Everyone should always know where the project stands and what’s coming up next.
The cross-functional manager guarantees the setup of a simple project structure, including a global vision, dated milestones and the different phases of execution. Tasks are broken down with clear deliverables assigned to each team member.
Without hierarchical links, it’s important to approach team relationships more like partnerships. Each member should take ownership of their assigned milestones, approve them with the cross-functional project manager and agree to delivering the results by a set deadline.
The project manager’s role is to ensure the roadmap is followed within a reasonable timeframe while challenging stakeholders on potential underestimation or overestimation of workload and deadlines. It's necessary to consult supervisors as well as the sponsor to approve the project scope and workload plan, therefore maintaining transparency and clarity throughout the project.
There are many unforeseen events that could disrupt or even endanger a project’s progress. This is especially true in cross-functional project management where unexpected factors are significant and often beyond the project manager’s control. A team member facing issues in their main task, the unavailability of a project component or a major and unexpected change within the company can jeopardize the entire project’s management.
The project manager must proactively identify and anticipate potential obstacles, whether they impact the manager directly or the project team. They should act as a resource to help stakeholders resolve issues and ensure smooth project execution.
Risk and contingency management are among the most important skills for project managers, especially in innovative or change-driven projects. Identifying potential problems and implementing corrective actions is essential. For example, during the planning phase, it's essential to:
Unlike the solution-oriented approach which involves researching new solutions/methods/technologies to introduce to the company (often forcing mismatched solutions), a problem-oriented approach is more pragmatic as it maintains a strong focus on ROI.
Therefore more time is spent in the first phase of understanding the problem and measuring the cost and revenue impact. This approach highlights actionable mechanisms that will evolve into core features of the solution, maintaining continuity until the project is fully deployed by:
As the value of data is now well-established, its role in a cross-functional project with a problem-oriented approach becomes even more significant. Data drives the actions and decisions of the entire team, including Go/No-Go decisions from management, nurturing fact-based and transparent exchanges.
A good project manager seeks to understand how to collect, analyze and provide relevant data for the project. When well-defined, data serves as a self-monitoring tool, helping to anticipate future corrective actions.
This is certainly the most critical phase for the project manager and is directly part of the project’s success. It should be supported by a document summarizing all the key elements of the operations to be led.
This document should result from collaborative work with all operational stakeholders. It provides to everyone a clear, comprehensive view, confirms commitments, helps decision-making during steering committees and ensures continuity between what is "planned" and what "actually happened" throughout the project. It also can be used as a roadmap for the cross-functional project manager, helping anticipate potential blockers and detect when the project goes off track.
In cross-functional projects, communication is key. Everyone must have access to the same information, the project manager acts as a mediator when needed and keeps all lines of communication open between the project manager and stakeholders. Additionally, there is sometimes an "evangelization" process required to ensure that everyone involved or who will be involved with the project is fully onboard with the approach.
"Alone we go faster, together we go further." This saying perfectly captures the importance of nurturing feedback and listening to outside perspectives. Whether reaching out to colleagues, innovation ecosystems or companies with similar markets or structures, remember that if you’re facing a problem, others might be too and may have already tried to solve it. Whether they succeeded or failed, their experiences offer valuable lessons and insights.
The project manager leads the steering committee. They must ensure that all important agenda items are addressed. To do this, they will prepare the speakers, key points and decisions ahead of time. A few key elements can assist in this process.
The sponsor plays an important role in re-energizing the team, sharing the vision, outlining the stakes and highlighting the benefits of the project. They empower team members to step outside their usual roles and act on their ideas.
The sponsor helps start up new projects, providing strategic direction to align the project with the company’s vision and goals. As such, they play a key role in decision-making and project advocacy at an executive level.
The sponsor’s mindset is important. Their role is to monitor and challenge stakeholder progress, settle Go/No-Go decisions and approve next steps. It is important to provide all key information so they can facilitate the operational workflow and even redirect or realign the project if it strays from the initial vision and goals.
As the first advocate of the initiative and the project, they defend it alongside the project manager to stakeholders and/or other members of the leadership team.
A good cross-functional project manager should possess the following skills:
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