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Recent research indicates that teams are an essential element of most leading organizations (Mohrrnan, Cohen, & Mohrrnan, 1995). With the proliferation of team use comes the need for research to better define the design and management requirements unique to specific types of teams. This research focused on cross-functional design teams tasked with the organizational redesign of sociotechnical work systems. A design team is a cross-functional multi-lex el team with the responsibility to create and often implement a plan for work system redesign. The research objective was to develop a deeper understanding of the team characteristics (called design features) that were most related to team effectiveness. Team effectiveness was defined to include both team performance and team member satisfaction. Cross-functional design teams were studied across two large organizations and key learnings were identified from a third large organization with substantial experience in team-based work redesign. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from team members using survey questionnaires and interviews. The data analysis strategy included Within and Between Analysis (which uses analysis of variance, correlations, and analysis of covariance) and multiple regression techniques to identify design features most related to team effectiveness at the team level. Results indicated that team skills and clarity in team sponsor expectations were significantly related to team performance at the team level (r= 0.83, p< 0.005, and r=0.89, p< 0.005, respectively). / Ph. D.

In a growing digital economy, the possibilities for newly established companies are immense, and the market for innovative, disruptive products has grown exponentially. In this environment, single-person start-ups exist alongside billion-dollar organizations with thousands of employees. Somewhere in the middle, scale-ups have become an increasingly interesting topic of study as they can be seen as the "successful" start-ups that are experiencing the transitional challenges of establishing themselves in an increasingly competitive market. As fast-growing scale-ups juggle customer's demand for new, innovative products/services alongside investor's demand for a viable business model, a need for a fast and adaptive product/service development environment arises. Here the concept of cross-functional teams becomes increasingly interesting as a tool for facing the challenges that such scale-ups face. This paper is an exploratory case-study following a cross-functional team at a tech scale-up in the Stockholm region. The company currently inhabits the gaming market and offers B2C products/services to thousands of customers. This case study follows the cross-functional team from its early inception to the later stages of its progress. This paper draws conclusions for optimal conditions and success factors that allow for cross-functional teams to reach their full potential. Being a case study, this paper is also able to analyze how different contextual factors have implications on how crossfunctional teams operate. In the end, success factors are laid out, both generally and contextually, giving readers insights into the benefits and challenges that go hand-inhand with cross-functional teams at high growth scale-ups. / I en snabbväxande digital ekonomi är möjligheterna för nyetablerade bolag enorma. Efterfrågan efter innovativa och disruptiva produkter har vuxit exponentiellt. I denna miljö existerar det både små start-ups och miljardbolag med tusentals anställda. Någonstans i mitten mellan start-ups och miljardbolag finns det ett bolagsstadie som benämns scale-up. Scale-up kan ses som framgångsrika start-ups som handskas med de utmaningar som kommer med att snabbt växa och samtidigt konkurrera i en tuff marknad. Snabbväxande scale-ups behöver balansera kundernas efterfrågan för innovativa produkter/tjänster samtidigt som eventuella investerare kräver bevis på att företaget har en lönsam affärsmodell. För att uppfylla allt detta krävs det en snabb, innovativ och adaptiv utvecklingsmiljö för företagets produkter och tjänster. Crossfunctional teams är en intressant modell för att hantera några av de utmaningar som scale-ups står inför. Denna studie är en explorativ fall-studie som följer ett cross-functional team på en svensk scale-up i baserad i Stockholmsregionen. Företaget är en leverantör till gamingindustrin och erbjuder B2C produkter och tjänster till tusentals kunder. Dennastudie följer ett cross-functional team från initierandet av teamet och under flera veckors tid. Studien bidrar med slutsatser gällande vilka förutsättningar och framgångsfaktorer som bidrar till att ett cross-functional team kan uppnå sin fulla potential. Denna fall-studie bidrar också med insikter kring hur olika kontextuella faktorer påverkar arbetet för crossfunctional team. Slutligen, presenterar studien olika framgångsfaktorer, både generella och kontextuella för cross-functional teams. Studien bidrar även med insikter gällande de olika fördelarna och utmaningarna som uppkommer om man arbetar med crossfunctional teams.

This study investigates the team aspects of a process improvement project situated in an Internet banking system maintenance and modification phase. To investigate how team processes could be improved in this context, four interventional change techniques were introduced and implemented during an action research study in which the researcher was included as one of the team members and participated during group meetings and discussions. Internet banking is an important Internet-delivered service which is expected to provide benefits for both commercial banks and bank customers. Internet banking allows bank customers to have the freedom to perform their financial activities at their convenience. Developing, maintaining, and improving Internet banking systems requires large amounts of investment to maintain high levels of Internet banking service quality, and the maintenance and modification phase of the overall lifecycle cost is a considerable part of this investment. Therefore, in order to ensure high levels of usability, reliability, and quality for these Internet banking services, commercial banks need to make significant investments in the maintenance and modification phases of their Internet banking systems' lifecycle. The four interventional change techniques used in this study were: departmental participation, equal participation, holistic scenario, and management support. The four techniques were found to be influential in developing process improvements in the maintenance and modification phase of Internet banking systems. These techniques generated several significant improvements which directly affected the way team members managed their work. The significant contributions of these interventional change techniques were: the creation of cross-functional multilevel teams, development of effective departmental participation and communication techniques, extended scope and knowledge by the team members of Internet banking systems, an increase in team learning and understanding, techniques to change problem structure, and an end to end problem-solving approach. ii These contributions also directly improved the performance of the Internet banking systems maintenance team, and there was a significant improvement in the outcomes of the Internet banking systems maintenance and modification phase.

Bakgrund: Användningen av teknikkonsulter inom svensk industri har ökat kraftigt under 2000-talet. Trots detta finns det en brist i forskningen gällande vilka anledningar som ligger bakom och vilka konsekvenser som kan följa av användningen av teknikkonsulter. Vidare finns det teoretiska indikationer på att teknikkonsulter inte är tillräckligt integrerade för att skapa den helhetsförståelse och vilja att kommunicera över avdelningsgränser som krävs i produktutvecklingen inom stora svenska industriföretag. Denna problematik har legat till grund för studiens syfte. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att utreda vilka motiv och behov som ligger bakom ett svenskt industriföretags nyttjande av extern kunskap i form av teknikkonsulter samt vilka konsekvenser som användningen av teknikkonsulter kan medföra för företagets tvärfunktionella arbete. Definitioner: Teknikkonsulter är olika typer av ingenjörer som hyrs ut företag för att arbeta tillsammans med de fastanställda inom framförallt produktutveckling. Genomförande: En fallstudie har utförts på två sektioner inom Scania R&amp;D. Två representanter på chefsnivå inom varje sektion har intervjuats. Resultat: Studien har identifierat två motiv och fyra behov som är betydelsefulla för inhyrningen av teknikkonsulter i svenska industriföretag. De motiv som studien har funnit är rörlighet samt inflöde och utflöde av resurser. De fyra behov som har identifierats är; numerisk flexibilitet, snabb förstärkning samt kortsiktiga respektive långsiktiga resurser. Vidare visar studien att resultaten av tvärfunktionell produktutveckling inom stora svenska industriföretag påverkas negativt av en hög andel teknikkonsulter eftersom teknikkonsulter inte innehar en helhetsförståelse för företaget. / Background: The use of technical consultants in the Swedish industrial sector has increased heavily during the 21th century. In spite of this increase, there is a shortage of research regarding the reasons for, and which consequences that can follow from the use of technical consultants. Furthermore, there are theoretical indications that these consultants are not fully integrated to the degree that they can create an overall understanding and will to communicate across departments, which is necessary for the product development in big Swedish industrial enterprises. This problem is the basis for the aim of the study. Aim: The aim of the study is to investigate which motives and needs that lie behind the the use of external knowledge in the form of technical consultants in Swedish industrial enterprises and which consequences that the use of technical consultants can bring to the cross-functional work of companies. Completion: A case study has been conducted at two sections within Scania R&amp;D. Two representatives on a managerial level from each section have been interviewed. Results: The study has identified two motives and four needs as significant for the use of technical consultants in Swedish industrial enterprises. The identified motives are mobility as well as inflow and outflow of resources. The four identified needs are; a numerical flexibility, rapid reinforcement as well as a short and long term resources. Furthermore, the study shows that the results of cross-functional product development within large Swedish industrial enterprises are negatively affected by a large share of technical consultants since they do not possess an overall understanding of the company. Key words: Technical consultant, cross-functional, contingent knowledge workers, flexible staffing arrangements, absorptive capacity.

Rolls-Royce AB in Kristinehamn, Sweden, part of Rolls-Royce Marine, is a leading developer and supplier of water jet and propeller based propulsion equipment. Its low volume production series and wide product variety offered to its customers along with an increasingly competitive market has entailed an increased demand on both delivery time and cost reductions. The on-site manufacturing engineering department is responsible for developing all tools and fixtures, and programming required to maintain the on-site production, assembling and quality testing. As part of the departments streamlining efforts this study aimed on evaluating streamlining possibilities related to the existing tool design used for static balancing and function testing controllable pitch propeller assemblies before packaging and shipping, along with the related tool development and manufacturing processes has been conducted.The process evaluation started from the point when a hub assembly design was finalized until when a manufactured tool was delivered for use in production. Work focused on locating inefficient activities and product properties, with respect to tool cost and lead time, followed by setting up an amendment proposal, implementing it and producing an alternate tool design of which the effects on tool cost and manufacturing lead time would be evaluated. Post evaluating the current state of the process and product a set based front loaded product development methodology known as Modular Function Deployment was chosen to be the applied method. This application resulted in a modular tool design that avoided the determined most inefficient manufacturing operation combination of welding and annealing. Modularity increased manufacturing flexibility, enabling more concurrent manufacturing, to reduce the lead time. The tool design also applied integral properties by identifying the common components and features between tool sizes. This led to reducing manufacturing and material costs. Possible lead time reduction for manufacturing was determined to be 35-45%, 3-4weeks, in comparison with the original tool design due to increased parallel manufacturing and avoiding inefficient manufacturing methods. The estimated cost reduction for combined development and manufacturing was determined to be 105K SEK the initial year followed by 175K SEK the second year assuming the current tool manufacturing rate. The combined effects of reduced cost and lead time would be beneficial to Rolls-Royce AB by contributing to an increase in delivery reliability and competitive prices on the market

Requirements engineering is at the heart of software engineering, and as such, it involves collaboration among many project team members. This collaboration is driven by coordination needs and relies on communication and knowledge that members have of their colleagues and related activities. Ineffective coordination with those who work on requirements dependencies may result in project failure. To study the coordination of those who need to coordinate work due to interdependencies in requirements, this dissertation introduces the concept of requirements-driven collaboration as collaboration that occurs during the elicitation, definition, specification, implementation, testing, and management of requirements. The first contribution of this research is a framework to study requirements-driven collaboration. This framework is based on social network theory and provides techniques to study communication and fleeting knowledge that underlying collaboration driven by requirements. This framework was incrementally developed throughout the research, first informed by literature review and then empirically-informed through its application in case studies of requirements-driven collaboration. The initial, literature-informed version of the framework was used to guide the design of empirical investigation of requirements-driven collaboration in two globally-distributed software development projects. The framework was then revised based on the insights obtained from its application in the two projects. The empirical evidence about requirements-driven collaboration in these projects represent the second major contribution of this dissertation. Among others, I identified that for both projects the membership of the requirements-driven social networks are dynamic and include important cross-site and cross-team interactions, that the power of distributing knowledge is not in the hands of few team members, and that there are members brokering information between two otherwise unconnected colleagues. The research in this dissertation brings implications for requirements engineering and for the study of collaboration is software projects. By providing researchers and practitioners with a set of techniques to study and evidence about communication and fleeting knowledge in requirements-driven collaboration, the framework offers a mechanism to examine fine-grained details in software projects. The insights obtained can be used to reason about how tools and processes can be improved to better support collaboration throughout the development life-cycle.

Dans un monde de compétition économique en évolution constante, les équipes projets plurifonctionnelles constituent un outil de management apprécié pour mettre en place des transformations stratégiques majeures dans les multinationales. Cependant, de nombreuses études empiriques (Kotter, 1995; Beer, Eisenstat and Spector, 1990; Beer, 2000; Stvetena and Damian, 2006) montrent que ces équipes, à moins qu’elles ne soient bien gérées, conduisent à l’échec. A partir d’une étude comparative approfondie d’une équipe pilote et de quatre autres équipes dédiées à la transformation du marketing, de la vente et de la distribution, dans deux entreprises pharmaceutiques, nous examinons les conditions internes des équipes plurifonctionnelles dédiées au changement organisationnel au sein d’organisations multinationales. Les résultats montrent que ces équipes réussissent mieux lorsque qu’elles couplent leurs activités avec le reste de l’organisation dans la première phase et la dernière phase du projet, lorsqu’elles pratiquent un leadership partagé et lorsqu’elles sont organisées en semi-structures. Cette étude contribue à la littérature sur le changement organisationnel en transcendant les relations paradoxales entre stabilité et changement, à la littérature de l’approche par les pratiques en explicitant les relations entre les pratiques et les organisations, et propose des enseignements clés pour les managers impliqués dans des transformations majeures au sein d’entreprises multinationale / In today’s ever-changing, competitive business environment, cross-functional teams are an increasingly popular mechanism to implement major business transformations within multinationals. Yet empirical data (Kotter, 1995; Beer, Eisenstat and Spector, 1990; Beer, 2000; Stvetena and Damian, 2006) support for the prevailing view that such teams, unless they are well managed, lead to failure. By drawing on an in depth comparative study of one Pilot Team and four teams dedicated to marketing, sales and distribution transformation in two pharmaceutical companies, we examine under which internal conditions cross-functional teams dedicated to organizational change enable or hinder organizational change within multinational corporations. The findings suggest that they succeed best through high level coupling activities with the remainder of the organization during the early and the later phases of a project, when practicing shared leadership and when organized as a semi-structure. This study contributes to the literature on organizational change in transcending the paradoxical relationships between stability and change, to the literature on the practice-based approach in making more explicit the relationships between practices and organizations and provides implications for managers involved in major business transformations in multinational corporations.

This report evaluates the team-structure of three software maintenance teams in order to decide their level of featureness (a term that defines to what extent a team has the quality (the set of characteristics) of being a feature team). Simulations of changes that are expressed as beneficial in an agile environment and that could increase the teams‘ level of featureness within the team structure are performed. The results show that each team‘s level of featureness is affected differently by each change. Partly, this underlines the importance of understanding the current team-structure before implementing changes that aim to increase the level of featureness. And secondly, within the scope of the study, the change where a user expert is declared a team member is concluded as the change that increases the teams‘ level of featureness the most. Based on the results the report also concludes that it is essential to implement changes that affect different, which in combination can increase the level of featureness.

Målet med detta arbete är att förbättra Spotifys processer när de gör förändringar internt som påverkar deras finansiella system. Arbetet har genomförts genom att kartlägga de team hos Spotify som skapar, påverkar och använder data i det finansiella systemet. Vidare har de olika teamens arbetssätt jämförts och skillnader i hur de arbetar identifierats. Baserat på de identifierade skillnaderna påvisas vilka utmaningar som finns när Spotify genomför förändringar där flera team är involverade. Kartläggningen visar att det finns både olika arbetssätt och grundinställning hos de olika teamen som skapar utmaningar i förändringsarbetet, speciellt i tvärfunktionella projekt. Slutsatser från resultatet presenteras i form av några olika förslag vilka kan hjälpa till att förbättra förändringsarbetet vid tvärfunktionella projekt hos Spotify. Skapa en koordinatorroll som fungerar som en gemensam kontakt för alla ärenden som genererar förändringar i det finansiella systemet. Genom den nya rollen tydliggör man informationsflödet. Skapa ett nytt team som ansvarar för alla förändringar som påverkar det finansiella systemet. Ett nytt team minskar beroenden mellan de olika teamen. Använda sig av tvärfunktionella projektledare som får dedikerade resurser att driva projekt där flera team är inblandade. Projektledaren kan då äga och ta ansvar för hela processen. Förändra så att alla inblandade team mäts på värdeskapandet för hela kedjan istället för att bedömas när de levererat sin del. Anordna en kortare workshop (1-5 dagar) med deltagare från de team som behöver interagera med varandra vid en förändring. Det blir ett effektivt sätt att minimera ledtiden mellan teamen. Skapa serviceavtal mellan de olika teamen, så att varje team effektivare kan planera sina resurser och veta vilka förutsättningar som gäller. / The objective of this thesis is to help Spotify to improve their internal change management process in their financial system. The work was done by charting the internal teams that create, influence and use data in the company’s financial system. Furthermore, the working methods of the different teams were compared and differences in how they work were identified. Our findings show that there are both different working processes and attitudes between the teams. This creates challenges in the change management process, especially in cross-functional projects. Conclusions from the results are presented as suggestions. These may help to improve the change management process in cross-functional projects at Spotify: Implement a coordinator role, which works as a single point of contact for everything that is related to changes in the financial system. The new role helps to improve the distribution of information. Create a new team that is responsible for all changes that affect the financial system. A new team reduces dependencies betweenthe different teams. Introduce cross-functional project managers who receive dedicated resources to implement projects where multiple teams are involved. The project manager can then take full responsibility for the entire process. Make sure the effectiveness/productivity of all involved teams is measured by the value created for the whole value chain rather than when their respective part has been delivered. Have a workshop (1-5 days) in which participants from the teams that needs to integrate components work together. This will be an effective way to minimize the waiting time between the teams. Create a service level agreement between the different teams, so that each team can efficiently plan their resources and know what to expect from other teams.