Late last year I (my team) was tasked with a project to transform an existing offering and experience, and after coming up with original ideas, it was carelessly manipulated as it moved through the development chain (and all we could do was...).

I have talked about this throughout the years with colleagues at different companies, and unfortunately it seems that most of them have fallen victim of the same situation when trying to innovate. The issue; silos. The outcome; cumulative error. Teams at organizations come up with an innovative idea, carry out the project, collaborate with different departments, and inevitably Frankenproducts are launched.

However, there is a simple way to change this–organizations just need to restructure project teams and empower them to preserve intent to make sure innovation is maintained throughout development.

Cross-functional teams

By using small cross-functional teams that can truly collaborate from discovery to launch, allowing them to make decisions together on specifications, comps, use cases, integration, compliance, usability, marketing, and so on, companies can ensure original plans are carried out all the way through production.

Although this sounds like a pretty simple change, it can have an enormous impact in workflow and final product results.

So, instead of managing projects in silos, try assembling cross-functional teams and work more efficiently towards innovation.