“The Silo Mentality is a mindset present when certain departments or sectors do not wish to share information with others in the same company. This type of mentality will reduce efficiency in the overall operation, reduce morale and may contribute to the demise of a productive company culture” (Business Dictionary definition)
Moving away from silos is not only a trend in IT and business systems but also in co-operation between different teams within organisations. The silo mentality comes naturally because of the way organizations are structured. Each division or department reports up to a manager who has responsibility only for that particular part but there is not a real indepence. On the contrary, they are intertwined and their performance and results are fundamentally influenced by their close co-operation.
That is why organizations are trying to find the way how to move towards agile mindset as a way to optimize flexibility, creativity, and productivity. This comes together with establishing cross-functional teams.
Running projects across multiple departments requires a different type of co-operation and also there is not enough people in the organization to form the teams needed to solve all the problems.
Cross-functional teams with a different functional expertise improve communication and quality of work from the ground.
- It helps the team to remain focused on the customer experience
- Such team can often iterate faster than siloed team – what leads to delivering value in the marketplace before competitors
- Working towards the common goal= overall success of the project, leads to motivation to resolve the conflict together, so that the project can move forward
- Continuous education, experimentation of the multiple skillset team can often lead to innovation in unexpected ways
Forming a cross-functional team is a challenge today but it is also a powerful motivation to improve the performance of an organization.
