Cross-functional harmony

Issue 219: The path to embedded design success

In any professional career rubric I've seen, there is a competency around cross-functional work. What it's called varies collaboration, cross-functional impact, etc. This growth profile is overshadowed by other competencies such as craft, leadership, and other important skills. The root cause isn't because it doesn't matter but is traditionally less emphasized. Cross-functional harmony is less tangible than other competencies but is the difference between a team making noise and wonderful music (a saying one of our principal designers shares that resonates).

Cross-functional harmony goes beyond the surface level. One must go deep in cross-functional work. Scheduling a meeting once with cross-functional partners and leaving saying, "Let's find ways to work together and keep us posted" feels good, but the behavior is what actually matters, not the the attitude.

Humans working as a team is one of those concepts that's existed throughout the history of humans since they were able to gather, organize, and execute. It might be a military platoon and how they organize their specialists in the squad. Perhaps it's a baseball team with unique position players with the shared responsibility of batting. This could also be a community organizer or a violinist in a symphony.

The common thread of these drastically different teams is the requirement to work with other crafts different from your own. As a young designer, this realization was a rude awakening for me. I imagined professional work focused on spending time with my craft of design. Instead, I was dropped in a standup with an engineer, who I never met, telling me they were blocked by design. The next status update is a marketing manager who needs creative assets for an upcoming campaign for something I did not design. This is the reality of teamwork we aren’t taught in school but applied learning on the job.

The cross-functional team of other crafts you work with is your primary team, not your craft team. When you don’t view it like this, team friction escalates quickly as it becomes an “us vs. them” mentality of warring crafts.

Reps are needed to perform better as a team. A violinist practices with other violinists to get better than their part but rehearses with the rest of the orchestra to work on cross-functional harmony. The outcome is an incredible concert performance. American Football players work with their position coaches on blocking, tackling, catching, and running the football. The cross-functional harmony occurs in the scrimmage. The outcome is winning as many games as possible to earn a spot in the playoffs to win the Super Bowl.

As software makers, our championship outcome is shipping delightful software for customers; often resulting in value exchanged for revenue. Our equivalent of the rehearsal and scrimmage is shipping software to ourselves.

In my talk at Hatch Conference, I talked about how design impact often lives in other departments. It was one of the motivators for me to lead Marketing there. As you progress in your professional career, there is a high chance your impact expands beyond making and using your craft. Do not ever forget that the reason a person is a good design leader is because they are good at design the same way a good engineering manager is good at engineering. I’ve sat in so many meetings where a quick mockup or diagram helped unlock a team in Marketing, Recruiting, and even Executive meetings. Design impact is enabling cross-functional harmony with that design note at the right time as much as the guitar solo.

Recap:

• It's important to spend time with your craft (ex: design), but applied impact occurs on your cross-functional teams.

• Set up rituals for your version of rehearsals and scrimmages

• Design impact often lives on outside of design. Identify opportunities where applying design can unlock a team

Reflect on where you're spending your time. Though you should invest time in developing your craft, make sure you have rehearsals, scrimmages, and other opportunities to work together. The time spent together turns “us vs. them” into “us” working towards outcomes together.

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Hyperlinks + notes

A collection of references for this post, updates, and weekly reads.

• Proof of Concept: What I learned from software engineers

• Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction by Kevin Bethune is available for pre-order

• [Mac Rumors] Top Stories: New M4 MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini! Doing everything in my power to resist purchasing the new Mac mini, but my M2 MacBook Air is still a beast—great updates

• Apple Acquires Pixelmator → Maybe this is the penance for getting rid of Apeture (RIP), could also be an aqui-hire

• Kate Syuma
  : The Roots of AI and building a career you truly love | Emily Campbell (VP of Design at HackerRank)