Cross-functionality creates silos
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As you get more cross-functional (Cross-functionality is a spectrum), your cross-functional teams will naturally start acting as silos. This creates several disadvantages:
- Communication silo. Because you are completely independent, you will talk only to other members of your team rather than members of other teams/of your discipline. If someone else in your same discipline but on another team (e.g. an engineer on a different team) is solving the exact same problem your team is facing today, but you never talk to them because you don’t need to, you might never know about it.
- Team myopia. Furthermore, even if you did talk to your fellow on the other team, you’d be less likely to see the validity of their solution, because you’d think they’re missing your team’s unique context and perspective (and, at least partially, you’d be right!).
- Local optimization. Finally, because your goals in a cross-functional team have to do with the team rather than with your discipline, cross-functional teams typically discourage long-term capacity building when it comes to individual disciplines. To put it more simply, an engineer in a cross-functional team is not going to create a reusable infrastructure orchestration for the entire engineering department: instead, they will just optimize locally.
When you have cross-functional teams, you need to be much more intentional about building and disseminating knowledge. This problem is commonly solved through practice teams, or communities of practice: they allow you to break out of the silo of your team and tap into the experience and the work done by everyone in your discipline across the entire org.
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