Cross-Organizational Team Integration Can Work for Your Software Development Needs
Cross-functional teams can help speed up your software development processes. But sometimes, you just don't have all the people you need for your team. This is where cross-organizational team integration can work.
But what is a cross organizational team? How does it work? And how can it help you deliver higher quality outputs - on time and on budget?
What is a Cross-Organizational Team?
We often form a cross-organizational team when a business outsources their work to an external party. It's when two or more organizations come together to work on a project or business activity. In many instances nowadays, this comes in the form of digital products and software development. The first port of recruitment for digital and software related work is often someone with a computer science background.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. job market lists over 1.4 computer science related jobs, but only 400,000 computer science graduates to fill these roles in 2020. This severe shortage makes finding the perfect developer even harder. It's one reason many are outsourcing their software development projects to companies that already have the experience and personnel for it.
Good integration of cross-organizational teams can lead to meeting deadlines and keeping on budget. However, this is only achievable through a high level of explicitness and the external team being receptive of the business vision and expectations.
This allows the external team to give better feedback on the expected deadline, know what to prioritize and to know the processes and procedures they might need to follow to get the application live. It also allows the external team to forecast potential failures and create plans to mitigate it.
How do Effective Cross-Organizational Teams Work?
All effective teams have two things in common: communication and the ability to deliver.
Most communications in the current global climate are performed through teleconferences and emails, especially if your teams are based offshore. Effective meetings are more than just a back and forth report on what's happening. They also involve checking the project's status against the expected outcome, the current burn rate and figuring out how to clear roadblocks, if there are any.
A team's willingness to identify project roadblocks can help with problem avoidance and encourage problem solving across the different organizations involved. When teams avoid problems, there's a high chance that they will become a bigger issue further down the line.
The ability to deliver also determines how well a cross-organizational team works. This is because one team may be a roadblock to another, causing hiccups in the burndown rate and delaying the delivery date. Not all teams are made equal and choosing the right team can be as simple as avoiding the ultra-cheap outsourced trap.
How Can a Cross-Organizational Team Help Deliver Your Digital Products?
When it comes down to it, the attraction towards cross-organizational teams is due to resourcing.
The outsourcing of an internal project to another party can lead to the increment of perspectives, which can lead to innovative solutions. Many businesses tend to view problems from a particular perspective, resulting in solutions that are designed and developed based on their limited views. However, the same product can be re-experienced and re-interpreted when it comes from a different vantage point such as from marketing, product teams, and sales.
Software development is the same process. When you employ an external party to develop your digital and software needs, they are able to come in with a plethora of previous experiences that can be transformed into something that meets your internal needs.
How We Can Help
As a software solution company, we operate in a no-shore setting. This means that our company is a mix of offshore technical and design resources located in Portugal, while our highly experienced project managers are based in the USA. This model is the most cost effective methodology we've found for our customers, whilst providing a highly effective cross organizational collaboration experience.
If you want to learn more about what we can do for you, connect with us today.
Co-authored by:
Dave Wesley ~ President, SRG
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Aphinya Dechalert ~ Marketing Communications, SRG
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