Too many products have been developed that serve one kind of client only. The reason is that the composition of the teams leads (subconsciously) to the development of products that serve only people that resemble the people in the team. One “famous” example is the soap dispenser that only works if your skin is white.

If teams are really cross-functional and are resembling the diversity of the market, the products they’re creating are also better. Thus, if the whole team has the full business expertise, knows the market, reflects the full diversity of the clients, then it can even disrupt the market and isn’t waiting for some person (e.g. the Product Owner) to decide on priorities. With this real cross-functionality, the team can fully understand the company’s business and has a holistic view of it, knowing its contribution to the company’s value stream.

Join us in a Panel dialogue with Jutta Eckstein and Maryse Meinen about that real cross-functional teams are an essential building block for implementing company-wide agility and the organization benefits by creating better and in a way more real products and by having more options when entering the war of talent.