If you’re trying to figure out effective ways to manage a project across multiple departments in today’s world of remote and hybrid work – you came to the right place.
Software and designing and developing apps were never easy projects to bring to a successful end. So learning how to smartly handle cross-departmental tasks is one useful step toward your goal.
How do you deliver a product, while balancing employer and stakeholder needs? We prepared a neat guide for managing cross-departmental teams, so read on to find out!
What Exactly is Project Execution?
Following project initiation and planning, the third step of the project life cycle is project execution. It is when you take your meticulously planned strategy to action through:
Following project initiation and planning, the third step of the project life cycle is project execution. It is when you take your meticulously planned strategy to action through:
- Setting goals and objectives
- Dividing the workload into deliverables and tasks
- Task distribution between teams
- Creating procedures, methods, and communication channels
- Tracking project progress throughout teams and intervening when issues arise
It’s a lot to handle, but putting best practices in place to promote transparency and cooperation can make a big difference. Let’s look at how to carry out a project across departments.
Main Challenges of Cross-Departmental Project Management
Before we get to the tips for effective project management for multiple departments, we will see which problems people often come across:
- Project Management without a strategy: Going blindly into the cross-departmental organization without planned outcomes and deadlines can wreak havoc on even your already-streamlined processes.
- Problems identifying project stakeholders: Especially larger companies sometimes have the problem of identifying stakeholders. They exist across different departments and outside the company, and as a whole, they make a big difference.
- Ineffective communication: People communicate through email, face-to-face meetings, project management tools, and different communication platforms such as Google Meet or Zoom. Knowing how to navigate each platform for interaction is a must for avoiding bottlenecks.
- Documenting unclearly: Clear project documentation helps with the streamlined execution of the project and making sure that expectations are met. Your stakeholders will be appreciative of this.
There are lots of things to keep in mind in the vast project management challenges, but one of the major mistakes you can make is to try to implement everyone’s tips or advice with no tangible and usable strategy that fits your company and needs.
Best Tips for Project Execution Across Multiple Departments
Great multiple-team collaboration can bring more productivity and efficiency. Cross-functional collaboration is not just a project execution tool, but a team-building measure, as well. Here are 5 practical ways you can take to get the most out of your cross-functional team and achieve the results you need.
Acting as a Proper Project Management Leader
Although having one person in charge of a cross-functional team is not required, the advantages outweigh the risks. Everybody in the team must assume SOME responsibility. But as a project manager, you need to be a team leader who can hold the group accountable and help each team member become self-sufficient.
A team leader must inform, delegate, and grant autonomy while monitoring the development. Invite the team to participate in the planning process as a way of working together. If you can, enlist mentors to guide the team as needed. There are many expert product development consultancy that can help your company scale its activities successfully.
Despite the cooperative effort of cross-functional teams, there must be a project management leader who is responsible for the project’s success. Without that commander, there is a larger chance that the ship will never fulfill its mission of getting to the dock.
Set Your Goals Clearly
According to a 2015 Harvard Business Review news article, about 75% of cross-functional departments are, well, dysfunctional. Since cross-functional teams are formed from several divisions within a company, they frequently have distinct, and perhaps conflicting, objectives or legacy processes that might impede performance. Team members may find it challenging to work and contribute if there is no precise alignment on shared goals.
Project managers can avoid this disagreement by establishing defined project objectives. Determine the desired outcome and connect it to the deliverables required to reach that goal. Establish that the team is working together to set goals that are both clear and quantifiable.
Enabling everyone on the team to contribute their ideas will not only raise the effectiveness of the goals you set but will also let each team member feel like they have a say in the project.
It is also critical to define distinct roles. When your team members understand their position in the process, they are more inclined to collaborate with other teams to complete tasks, resulting in wiser, more sustainable decision-making.
Keep Stakeholders in Mind
There are as many different perspectives as there are stakeholders! We all have our best interests in mind, which means we are all looking out for our departments and their needs. Sure, in-house stakeholders all have the same definition of “success” when it comes to the end-game. But when it comes to the journey to the goal, the project manager needs to address the needs of each individual.
For example, your Chief Technology Officer will have a different aim than the Creative Marketing Director, and anyone who works in administration and financials worries will be concerned about scaling or market share. People have different focuses and you should be considerate about your colleagues when you have meetings and discussions.
Final Word
Even though managing project development projects with numerous departments engaged is never simple, it can go more smoothly if you are aware of the typical difficulties and take action to address them.
A significant amount of time should be spent on stakeholder identification, communication, and expectation formulation. If you prioritize right, it is possible to strike a balance between various teams to achieve your common goal.
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