Benefits of Creating Effective Cross-Functional Teams - Assignment Example

One of the challenges would be on fair placement that is what the roles of each team member would be. The other is how to manage the teams effectively and this will majorly focus on communication channels and the leadership of the team at the ground level. In order to avoid these challenges, managers need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each member and utilize this information to know how to classify them into teams and who can perform which role in a team.3. Explain how roles, norms, status, group size, and cohesiveness might affect these teamsIf the group is too large or too small, there may be issues of underperformance, lack of unanimity, and frequent disagreements.

Lack of proper role allocation may lead to roles overlapping and hence arguments or lack of performance by others who are unsure what to do. If the group lacks norms that guide them, then issues of time wastage, misconduct, and mistrust will occur leading to underperformance. When the group lacks cohesiveness, then animosity develops and this leads to only a few group members performing, mistrust develops, and eventually the group will break up. Finally, the status of each group member should be known to avoid communication problems or role disambiguity.4. Explain how each of the characteristics of effective teams would be important for an effective cross-functional teamOpen communication will lead to creativity and trust.

The other characteristic is a clear and fair role definition to avoid role disambiguity and overlap. For any team to perform effectively, leadership and decision-making are key characteristics as they will lead to proper management of resources and also accountability not to forget responsibility for the other team members.