Leading multidisciplinary Project Teams

Multidisciplinary project teams can lead to more innovative solutions and a better understanding of the project's complexities by providing a wider range of perspectives, skills, and experiences. This is particularly useful for projects that need to take a comprehensive approach and integrate multiple disciplines, such as design, engineering, marketing, and technology. By combining these different skill sets, a team can tackle complex problems more effectively and deliver a more comprehensive solution.

One of the major sources of project complexity is human behavior. It can increase the complexity of a project by introducing factors of subjectivity, different cultural or professional backgrounds or attitudes. This makes project leadership a complex and challenging task that requires a combination of technical and interpersonal skills. This leadership is not tied to the project manager alone, as successful projects feature various team members who demonstrate leadership skills. Not to mention, building these teams requires a wide range of leadership skills to create an effective project environment, which is necessary to allow team members to work together and achieve synergistic effects and the best possible outcome. Creating such an environment involves proper communication, motivation, and taking action when the situation requires it.

This article outlines the key elements of successful multidisciplinary project team leadership. These include building a high-performing team, setting clear goals and expectations, managing conflict and overcoming obstacles, and motivating and engaging team members. The article also discusses the limitations of multidisciplinary project teams. An annotated bibliography is provided for further reading on this topic.

Background

Definition multidisciplinary/cross-functional team

"Cross functional teams are groups of people from various departments in an organization—such as marketing, product development, quality assurance, sales and finance—who work together to achieve a common goal. Oftentimes, cross functional teams are organized to complete a specific project, but they can also be created with a more ongoing purpose."

Functional diversity in the context of cross-functional teams refers to the range of skills, knowledge, and expertise that team members from different functional areas bring to the team. On a cross-functional team, it can be beneficial because it brings together individuals with different perspectives, experiences, and knowledge, which can lead to more innovative and effective solutions. For example, a marketing professional might bring a customer-focused perspective, an engineer might bring technical expertise, and a finance professional might bring financial analysis skills.

Cross-functional teams differ from traditional teams in three key ways: First, their members have competing social identities and loyalties. Most people tend to identify more socially and psychologically with their function and responsibilities than with their organization. This can lead to conflicts between team members, as teams also generate their own identities and loyalties. Second, cross-functional teams are subject to significant pressure and conflict because they are often temporary task teams. Finally, these teams often face high-performance expectations, with ambitious goals to reduce development time, create knowledge, and improve organizational learning.

Why multidisciplinary teams?

Following the Reasons for adopting cross-functional teams according to :

• Performance Increase
  • Speed
  • Quality
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Success rate
  • Lower Costs
• Process Improvement
  • Cross-functional interactions
  • Ownership
  • Improved process
  • Motivation and satisfaction
  • Resource use
  • Improve control

Challenges working within multidisciplinary teams

Overview of some of the main challenges when it comes to work/lead cross-functional teams, referring to

• Functional diversity
• Time allocation diversity
• Multiple reporting relationships
• Implications for team trust

Application

Structuring an approach for successful leadership, referring to and including respective success factors to successful lead an cross-functional team

Building a High-Performance team

• Success factors connected to this topic:
  • Human resources
  • Climate
  • Champions
  • Respect/trust

Establishing Clear Goals and Expectations

• Success factors connected to this topic:
  • Goals
  • Ownership

Managing Conflict and Overcoming Obstacles

• Success factors connected to this topic:
  • Senior management suppoort
  • Team leadership
  • Respect/trust
  • Cooperation

Motivating and Engaging Team members

• Success factors connected to this topic:
  • Empowerment
  • Commitment
  • Champions

Limitations

• Varying definitions: The definition of a "multidisciplinary team" can vary from one organization to another, and this can make it challenging to create a standardized approach to writing about the topic.

• Lack of standardization: There is no single best way to lead a multidisciplinary project team, and different approaches may work better for different organizations or projects. This could make it challenging to create a comprehensive guide to leading these teams.

• Complexity: Leading a multidisciplinary team is a complex process that involves managing a range of different personalities, communication styles, and areas of expertise. This complexity can make it challenging to distill the topic into a concise and easily digestible article.

• Scope: The topic of leading multidisciplinary project teams is broad and covers a range of different subtopics, including team-building, conflict resolution, project management methodologies, and more. It could be challenging to cover all of these subtopics in a single article.

Annotated Bibliography

• Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI). (2021). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK ® Guide) – 7th Edition and The Standard for Project Management. Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI)
• Kerzner, H. (2017). Project Management - A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling (12th Edition). John Wiley & Sons
• Edward F. McDonough III. (2000). Investigation of Factors Contributing to the Success of Cross-Functional Teams. Elsevier Science Inc