Design as a
Cross-Collaboration Engine
Working across, instead of within
Cross-functional collaboration is nothing new. But expectations are rising, and so are the challenges. More complexity, more stakeholders, more friction. That’s not a bug. That’s the system.
Design has always touched multiple teams. But to really move things forward, it needs to do more than just connect. It needs to facilitate.
When collaboration starts to hurt
The idea of collaboration is usually not the problem. The execution is. Meetings that drain time instead of creating clarity. Handovers that break momentum. Parallel efforts that misalign.
As General Stanley McChrystal reflects in Team of Teams, »Information has to flow faster than hierarchy.« Since traditional top-down structures slow down the very collaboration they ask for. Designers see the cracks of this often first, because we live in the in‑between.
»The time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50 percent or more in the past two decades, yet the returns on that collaboration often diminish as coordination overload sets in.«
Rob Cross, Reb Rebele & Adam Grant, Collaborative Overload (Harvard Business Review, 2016)
In between means in between functions, between priorities, and between the visible and the invisible. We hand work to engineering and discuss strategy with product. We listen to users, asking questions about the business with product and revenue, supporting the holistic storyline of the company, but also listening to the quiet signals in our teams.
Because of that, we often notice where things don’t connect when the process promises flow, but friction builds. We feel the delay before anyone names it. We see the conversation that should happen but doesn’t. And sometimes, our sketches or prototypes capture that tension before words do and release it in a long-needed discussion.
And yes, sometimes collaboration feels like a kind of tax. A coordination tax. And yet, none of us can deliver alone anymore. Not at the pace we’re expected to.
Where design comes in
Designers already hold key skills: visualizing ambiguity, framing questions, and holding space for other perspectives. That’s not decoration; that’s organizational glue.
But to use these skills, we need to shift our mindset. From contributor to facilitator. From designing the thing to designing the room where the thing is shaped. And culture matters. Jon Gordon reminds us in The Power of a Positive Team: »Positive teams don’t happen by accident. They are built with shared vision and trust.«
Facilitation is not just more tools or holding workshops. Designers work hard on empathy toward users, but we often overlook the need to practice empathy toward our peers in product, engineering, or even legal. Real influence starts when we understand their constraints and priorities as well as we understand our users.
»Cross-functional collaboration is a discipline. Breaking down silos is as much about using specific practices and internalizing principles as it is about changing structure.«
Alison Randel, A Practical Guide to Cross Functional Work (Medium, 2017)
This is where empathy opens the door, but it doesn’t walk the room for us. Influence grows only when we pair that understanding with deliberate practice: shared rituals, clear framing, and moments that turn alignment into action. That’s when design moves beyond delivery, builds the trust that makes collaboration real, and becomes the quiet catalyst for vision, even in organizations where structure and culture rarely meet.
It’s a structural issue
Cross-collaboration sounds like a cultural challenge. But it’s also structural. Most companies are optimized for function, not flow. Boundaries are baked in, in roles, tools, and incentives. Designers can’t change that alone. But we can make the cracks visible. And when we do, we don’t just make better products. We make better decisions.
What that looks like in practice
- Designers who co-create with legal, not just ask for sign-off
- Working sessions that replace status meetings
- Design artifacts that invite feedback, not just approvals
- Rituals that connect strategy and execution, weekly
These are small signals that collaboration is starting to flow. Moments where design helps teams move together, not just hand work over the wall.
It’s not about being the smartest in the room. It’s about building the room in a way that others want to step into.
The tension between ego and impact
Designers often join conversations with a spark:
»I have great ideas for the product.«
»I want to build something I can be proud of.«
»I want to create a cool brand.«
There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the creative instinct. But in cross‑collaboration, personal ambition meets organizational reality. The room you build is not your stage. It’s a place where ideas mix, shift, and often belong to everyone before they become real.
Influence comes less from insisting on my idea and more from creating the conditions where the right idea can surface and actually take root in the system around it. That’s what design brings to cross‑collaboration: The ability to shape a context where people contribute, connect, and move forward together, even when the system around them makes it hard.
Why we need to get better at this
Because execution without alignment is expensive. Because miscommunication isn’t always a people problem, it’s typically a framing problem. Because the more distributed our work gets, the more we need moments that bring it together.
»Cross functional teams fail not because they lack talent, but because coordination becomes the work«
Shamresh Khan, When Cross Functional Teams Still Need Too Much (LinkedIn, 2023)
Cross‑collaboration doesn’t just happen. It’s a discipline, a mix of structure, practice, and reflection with the right conditions. It’s not just about putting people from different functions in the same room; it’s about creating the space where they can actually move together. And moving together means balancing speed and quality.
- Speed because organizations demand visible progress. If nothing seems to move, energy and trust fade.
- Quality because moving almost without connection only creates local wins and systemic friction.
Design helps teams hold that tension. By making progress visible without skipping synthesis. Creating moments where teams pause, connect the dots, and see if the work is still pointing in the right direction. From my experience and what the research shows, there need to be a few things in place, so this can happen:
- A visible, shared mission Everyone has to see the same “why.” Without a common purpose, collaboration turns into polite parallel work. Design can make that purpose tangible, through framing, visuals, and stories that connect the work to its impact.
- Clear roles and ownership People need to know not only what they are contributing, but also how decisions will be made. When responsibility is fuzzy, collaboration slows down or turns into endless consensus‑seeking. Designers can help by mapping roles, decisions, and flows, making invisible dependencies visible.
- Moments to pause and learn together Teams that never step back keep repeating the same friction. Reflection is what turns activity into progress. Design can create those moments. With a retro, a synthesis wall, a sketch session — to surface misalignment and see the bigger picture before moving on.
- A space that invites contribution, not just presence Cross‑functional work collapses when people show up but don’t engage. Designers can shape the room — literally and metaphorically — so that ideas feel safe to surface, mix, and evolve.