Balanced Teams – Here’s how to make them work
I was recently at a conference hosted by an old colleague from Pivotal Labs. This brought many old Pivots together. Over the lunch break, we were reminiscing about how special that place was… and commiserating about the fact that very few of the folks around the table had worked in an environment like that before or since.
If you’re not familiar with Pivotal Labs, it was a modern software consultancy. Our goal was to transform our clients by pairing with them in a cross-functional team that embodied modern product innovation and development principles and dial them up to 11. I worked there for nearly six years setting up European offices and as Global Head of Product Design.
This conversation made me curious, because apparently I’m the exception—I’ve had the chance to work in these “special, once-in-a-lifetime” places again and again. But that’s not by accident: I’ve made it my business to create these kinds of spaces for people to come together to do their best work and to create a real impact. One first principle that guides my work is building cultures that foster deep collaboration to solve creative problems.
What do I mean by the term “balanced team”?
Let me take a moment to clarify my terminology. Balanced teams (also known as cross-functional product teams or product trios) are based on the idea that various perspectives are needed to develop and ship a successful product.
The exact team members can vary depending on the product and organisation, but they tend to include the primary disciplines involved with building products (product managers, designers, and engineers) as well as any other members who can contribute within this specific organisational context (like data scientists, UX researchers, product marketers, etc.).
One example I like is Emily Webber’s “Team Onion” approach, which recommends having a core team (in this case, likely product design, product management, and engineering) that works with a wider team of collaborators and supporters (such as data science). Following this model, the core team pulls in collaborators as needed and keeps supporters informed of what they’re doing.
Why is it so hard to work in balanced teams?
While it is possible to set up balanced teams, I see organisations struggle with the shift towards cross-functional empowered product teams again and again. And it happens today just as much as when I started out in the mid-’90s. I am not surprised by the Harvard Business Review article that asserts 75% of cross-functional teams are dysfunctional. This sounds like such a simple and familiar concept, yet it proves difficult to set a group of people up for success in an organization. To the point where people feel like thought leaders are describing the impossible.
Now that I’ve had the opportunity to work with and for a wide range of organisations (and learn about even more through my individual coaching clients), I’ve observed a few common antipatterns that prevent balanced teams from succeeding:
Organ rejection by the organisation, whether it’s in the form of budgeting, staffing, incentives, or line management that prevents working this way.
Politics over shared outcomes—or a lack of shared accountability for them—which often leads to falling back into silo priorities.
The difficulty involved in convincing others to make this a priority.
A “side of desk” approach, and not full-time, fully committed individuals, which pulls team members in many different directions and lessens their impact.
The company’s leadership is not a balanced team, but continues with old silos, strategies, and governance. If leaders aren’t working collaboratively around shared goals/outcomes, it’s very difficult to get their teams to work this way.
Strategy and measures of success are not clear, so it’s hard for the balanced team to demonstrate their accomplishments.
There’s no support from leadership to change or adapt ways of working.
Funding is not aligned and makes staffing impossible.
The company culture doesn’t align or support collaboration over individual success.
Why make the effort to work in balanced teams?
Now you may be wondering: With all the hurdles you’re likely to encounter, why should you even make the effort to work in balanced teams?
Despite the difficulty, it is absolutely worth the effort to transition to the balanced team model. Here’s why:
First and foremost, you can solve increasingly complex problems creatively and effectively when you bring in multiple perspectives.
You’ll be faster and come up with more robust and innovative solutions when you work this way. The efficiencies we used to gain from compartmentalising work along an assembly line aren’t the current reality anymore. Technology advances at an ever-increasing rate. We can make changes to software in seconds; not years. No single person can keep up with that, but a cross-functional team can.
When you work cross-functionally, you minimise hand-offs, which leads to a shared sense of accountability. This also helps your team focus on overall product outcomes rather than practice-specific measures of success. For example, you’re less likely to hear people say things like, “Well, I did my wireframes” as a way of brushing off a missed goal.
Balanced teams are oriented around opportunity spaces that solve the most valuable customer needs and business objectives. Involving multiple perspectives helps ensure you’re considering the impact on both your customers and your bottom line.
And honestly? It’s more fun! (You can read more about the impact on people-related outcomes like belonging, engagement, and retention in this article on organizational design by Kathi Enderes.)
How can you get started with balanced teams?
I understand the instinct to react to all this information by saying, “That sounds great… but it would never work here.” But I urge you to go beyond that immediate reaction. This approach works beautifully and it can create the environment for wildly successful high-performing teams that actually create impact—not just high-velocity output. When balanced teams are set up for success by their organisation, they reap the benefits of agile, lean, and product- and user-centred approaches.
So how do you start working this way?
Try with a pilot team and a well-defined mission. Look at what challenges the team runs into and solve for these systemic blockers.
Create a team charter to help foster alignment and get to know each other. Set a clear mission that’s aligned with organisational strategy and clear success measures so the team can make good decisions, fast.
Bring people together who are aligned around this collaborative mindset and comfortable with trying out something different that requires a high amount of agency, openness, and experimentation.
Start with core team skills (to create a viable, feasible, desirable, usable product) and collaborative mindsets. I like Kate Rutter’s Balanced Team Pie as a tool to help with this.
Give the team air cover to do things outside the current norms and easy access to the necessary tools and executive support.
Consider how the team can co-locate. Ideally you’ll have everyone in the same physical location, but even if that’s not possible, they do need ample hours each day for real-time collaboration.
It’s crucial to develop a culture and psychological safety to be open, speak freely, and iterate. This is a new and different way of working, so it requires vulnerability and the ability to make mistakes. You also need to give the team support to productively resolve conflicts (if this isn’t part of the culture yet). Similarly, create a culture where there’s no blame, but instead a collective responsibility for delivering value to the customer and the business.
Build a habit of continuous improvement through weekly retrospectives (which should be held by the team and for the team).
Closing thoughts and next steps
My goal with this article is to give you some inspiration and tactics to try out. But if you’re ready to do an even deeper dive, I host a regular online event with Adrian Howard that’s dedicated to balanced teams. We’ve been part of this community of pioneering collaborators to bring our practices together since 2011. We’d love to see you at the next one!
And if you would like more dedicated support in bringing more cross-functional collaboration into your practice, I’d be happy to work with you as a coach or consultant. Don’t hesitate to get in touch to discuss how we might work together!
