Why Should Your Teams Be Multidisciplinary?
With teamwork, dreams work. When a group of interdependent individuals come together to achieve a common goal, the team's collaborative effort enables them to meet the goal in a more efficient and effective way. Rather than simply following an order given by a boss, allowing teams to come up with a goal that they can accomplish together makes them feel more connected with and motivated towards the objective.
Not only is teamwork fun, it offers multiple perspectives and lightens burdens as many hands make light work. Teamwork also spreads responsibility since no decision is made alone and encourages confidence knowing that other team members stand behind decisions. The ultimate benefit is that you can successfully achieve more, driving both innovation and business forward, with a multidisciplinary team.
What is a multidisciplinary team?
Multidisciplinary teams include multiple expertise and different but complementary skills. The first step to building a multidisciplinary team is to gather as much variety of expertise as possible. From there, it's crucial to find a balance and match the individual skills of a team so that nobody is using their weakness.
Having a multiplicity of skills within a team is important because innovation will drop if you only have one set of skills. It's also paramount to remember that everyone is an equal partner in a multidisciplinary team. Everyone works towards a communal goal, with individual perspectives building towards that goal.
The benefits of aligning all in-house fields of expertise
In the medical world, multidisciplinary teams bring together healthcare professionals specialising in different fields to discuss and determine a patient's treatment plan. By doing this, the solutions are aligned so no two treatments contradict each other. Working as a multidisciplinary team improves communication and streamlines workflows, increasing productivity and saving time. It also allows patients to receive faster, more accurate and comprehensive care in the long run.
Consider the multidisciplinary approach in other fields. By aligning the goals of individuals in the business department with those in design, production, marketing and support, internal competition is low and the whole company can expedite its forward progress.
How to build a multidisciplinary team?
Large organisations can clog up quickly and be divided into a million different departments or responsibilities. The first step is to remove institutionalisation. Instead, start thinking about how you can build team synergy with small projects. For example, the project could be about rebranding or redeveloping a certain element in your product offering.
To build the team:
- Pick one person from every vertical.
- Give them the problem statement.
- Let the team evaluate and decide if they are at full capacity or need another team member.
- The team must have a completely flat structure so they are all responsible.
The team in action:
- At the beginning of a week, the team will come up with a plan and delegate tasks amongst themselves so everyone knows who will do what.
- If there are skills missing from the team, they will ask the company to allocate the time of other colleagues.
- At the end of the week, the team does a Sailboat exercise as a retrospective to discuss if the team was successful in solving the challenge of the week. You can find more details and specific information about the Sailboat exercise here.
The most important part of building multidisciplinary teams is giving the team freedom to independently manage its members and projects.
Multidisciplinarity in a Design Sprint
In a Design Sprint, being multidisciplinary is even more important. Design Sprints have a short timeframe and high pressure, so the number of sprint participants should be kept to a minimum. With only one opinion per field of expertise, you avoid clutter and can accelerate forward. Avoid the temptation of including additional experts as the 80/20 rule applies and they will not provide extra added value.
Multidisciplinary teams boost innovation and drive businesses forward by aligning different fields of expertise. This way of working streamlines workflows and improves communication, which increases productivity and saves time. Giving teams the freedom to manage their projects and members also means that they feel more engaged with their work and will produce better results.
Having trouble building the right multidisciplinary team? PM me to find out how our team building sprints can aid you.
