InsightIQ Blog

Taking another look at Cross-Collaboration

Nov 18 2009

I'm in the middle of reading a terrific book by the late professor Randy Pausch called "The Last Lecture". Yes, I know that this was a best seller and that I am probably the last person in the country to read this book, but that's beside the point.

I just read an interesting chapter where he referenced teaming up with another professor from Carnegie Mellon University who interestingly taught Drama (Randy Pausch was an IT Professor at Carnegie Mellon). The partnership resulted in the development of "The Entertainment Technology Center" and a completely new 2 year Master's Program in which artists and technologists worked together in developing a variety of cutting-edge visual effects."

This got me thinking about my experiences in Corporate America. In nearly every organization I've been in I've always been a part of an analytic team. The analytic team was typically housed within the Marketing department and spent a lot of time talking with IT since Marketing didn't have a lot of interaction with them. Furthermore, Marketing and Merchandising didn't get along at all. Occasionally, maybe once a week or so, members of Marketing, IT, Analytics, and sometimes even Merchandising would have a meeting and discuss how things were going. Nothing ever seemed to get done quickly or efficiently.

What if organizations took the approach Randy Pausch championed and built cross-functional teams. I'm not just talking about teams put together for team-building exercises or company events, but teams that worked together for months on end. Build multiple teams that include a representative from Analytics, Marketing, Merchandising, and IT and have them work towards a common goal. Make it competitive if there is one goal that all teams are working towards. See if the cross-collaboration results in creative new ways of solving problems and results in a better understanding of the objectives of each department within the organization.

I'm sure there are dozens of business books that likely tout the same approach and that what I'm advocating certainly isn't new. What I can say, however, is that the approach makes sense and perhaps giving it a try within your organization may produce positive results, reinvigorate employees, and reduce conflict across divisions.

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