The terms ‘cross-functional’ and ‘T-Shaped’ are frequently used in many companies. They are equivalent concepts and are very often used as synonyms.
To avoid confusion when organising agile teams and large-scale agile ecosystems, it is important to make a distinction between these two terms.
Cross-Functional Team
‘Cross-functional’ is an adjective describing an entity (e.g. a team or a larger organisational entity) that includes people doing different types of work’.
A ‘cross-functional team’, or cross-functional team, is a team composed of members with different skills and specialisations who work together to achieve common goals. In this type of team, each member brings a different area of expertise, enabling the group to manage and complete complex projects independently and in an integrated manner. The diversity of expertise within the team allows it to address all phases and aspects of a project, reducing the need to depend on other units or external resources. This approach encourages greater collaboration and flexibility, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the work process.
T-Shaped Professionals
The term ‘T-Shaped’ refers to a metaphor used to describe an individual who has a combination of professional competences.
In the ‘T-Shaped’ representation, the vertical part of the ‘T’ represents a deep specialisation in a specific area of expertise or knowledge, while the horizontal part of the ‘T’ symbolises a broad range of more superficial, but not necessarily very deep skills in other relevant areas.
A ‘T-Shaped’ professional thus has solid experience and specialised skills in one area but also possesses a general understanding and ability to work in several areas or disciplines. This type of profile allows effective collaboration with other departments and greater flexibility in contributing to multidisciplinary projects.
Complete Cross-Functional Team
The concepts of ‘cross-functional’ and ‘T-Shaped’ can be applied at three distinct levels: individual, team and ‘ecosystem’. The individual represents a single person, while the team is a group of people working together to achieve a common goal. The ecosystem, on the other hand, is a coordinated set of teams and individuals working together towards a broader, shared goal.
When we speak of a ‘fully cross-functional’ entity, we are referring to one in which all the competencies needed to accomplish a task are present within it. This implies that the entity, whether it is an ecosystem, a team, or an individual, can function alone without requiring outside assistance. The aim is therefore to create teams and ecosystems that are independent and can complete work independently, thus reducing dependencies on external resources to a minimum.
Although it is possible to describe an individual as ‘cross-functional’, as in the case of a full-stack engineer who possesses both people- and technical skills, it is unrealistic to expect a single person to possess all the skills required for each task. It is more common and useful to apply the concept of ‘cross-functional’ to teams and ecosystems, as it is more realistic that a group of people, rather than a single individual, can cover the full range of required skills.
In summary, while it is advantageous for an individual to be able to do several types of work, the important thing is that the team or ecosystem as a whole is ‘fully cross-functional’, thus ensuring the ability to get the job done without the need for external support.
Partially T-Shaped Individuals
While the term ‘fully cross-functional’ applies mainly to teams and ecosystems, ‘T-Shaped’ refers mainly to individuals.
A fully cross-functional team may exist in which each member specialises in a specific functional area and has no competences outside his or her area of specialisation. Such a team would meet the definition of ‘fully cross-functional’, but may be weak in the presence of uncertainties. In contrast, a fully cross-functional team or ecosystem, composed of T-Shaped individuals, would be more resilient in situations of change. T-Shaped individuals within the same team or ecosystem would also reduce the likelihood of internal dependencies becoming obstacles. If only one person in the team performs tests, all others depend on his or her availability to complete a task. If several people have testing skills, the risk of bottlenecks due to waiting for a ‘tester’ is reduced.
Challenges and problems of the T-Shaped concept
- The Challenge
The concept of a T-Shaped professional can be a significant challenge for many people, because historically, organisations are structured around teams with similar skills or system components, such as QA teams or Backend teams. Corporate management is aligned to these structures, such as the Development Manager. Careers are built by specialising in skills that are in high demand, such as front-end developers. A common misconception is that each person must possess all the skills needed to deliver a product, as they should be T-Shaped.
- The Problem
The traditional approach of building teams based on common competencies presents several problems in today’s environment: the coordination costs of advancing a job through all specialisations are high and project management has to manage the resulting dependencies. Knowledge disappears during transitions between specialisations and decisions are lost as work passes between teams.
Professionals become highly sectoralised in skills and product knowledge, making it more difficult to expand skills. The attitude of ‘it’s not my job’ can overtake when individuals are not motivated to be responsible for something outside their specialisation.
The Benefits of a T-Shaped Team
By building a team with a combination of skills, rather than around a specific skill set, the organisation will be able to:
- Reduce dependencies between teams, resulting in fewer coordination challenges and different priorities.
- Reduce transitions between knowledge silos, avoiding loss of information.
- Broaden and deepen the skills of individual team members over time through collaboration.
- Promote team responsibility for the whole solution rather than for individual parts.
The same model applies to larger organisations with many teams. Not every team can be expected to have all the skills from day one, but overall, all teams together will possess the necessary skill set.
This may cause problems when a small number of teams (perhaps even a single team) possess a very specific skill set. These teams will essentially become a constraint for other teams, going against the idea of cross-functionality.
There are three options to reduce this problem:
- If the skill set is highly specialised, expensive or regulated, one will probably have to live with this constraint.
- If the skill set is less specialised but still difficult for the larger group of teams to master, there are a couple of approaches that could be taken: apply a model in which the specialist team supports and enables development in other teams. Large Scale Scrum suggests the concept of a ‘traveller developer’ who rotates between teams every two sprints, with the aim of sharing skills and knowledge.
- The last and most desirable long-term option would be to reorganise teams in such a way that these skill silos no longer exist, either through training or a better distribution of skills across teams.
Within an agile organisation, having fully cross-functional teams and ecosystems, which are in turn composed of T-Shaped individuals, is a great solution. Cross-functional teams bring together diverse competencies, while T-shaped individuals combine deep expertise with broad collaboration skills. Careful planning, thorough reflection and an understanding of what makes a high-performance team successful will lead an organisation to deliver more value to its customers.
The term ‘cross-functional’ refers to teams with different competences covering several functional areas, while ‘T-Shaped’ describes professionals with in-depth specialised competences and broader expertise in other areas. Read our article to find out more about this topic!
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