Train your eye to watch Cross Functional Activities

For team members performing a trade, it is easy to figure out when a mistake has been made. Something does not work or does not look like a drawing. The most challenging mistakes to figure out are mistakes that happen within cross functional activities. To recognize mistakes in cross-functional activities, supervisors must understand them. 

What are cross functional activities? They are activities involving the inactions between field team members and back-office team members to complete. For example, a purchase order or PO is issued by a project manager, superintendent, or shop supervisor for an expected price and quantity.  

Best case scenarios, the vendor responds to the PO by returning a sale order (SO) or sales confirmation back to the person issuing the PO. The purpose of the SO is to confirm the price and the quantity’s availability. If the price has changed, the person issuing the PO has time to find the item(s) at the budgeted price.  

If the quantity is not available, then the person issuing the PO has time to find the amount not available. If a vendor does not provide SO, then the person issuing the PO should follow up with the vendor to verify price and availability. Once verified, the person issuing the PO should email the vendor documenting the price and availability. The email becomes a DeFacto SO.  

Work Orders (WO) to other contractors work in a similar fashion. The contractor verifies the price and scope of work by signing the WO.  

Delivery of the products ordered is the next milestone. The vendor provides a delivery ticket so that someone in the shop or on a job site verifies the item and quantity on the delivery ticket has been delivered. The person checking in the items delivered should send the delivery ticket to the correct team member in accounting by the end of the day. Vendors usually generate and send invoices once a delivery has been made. Accounting cannot verify that an invoice is correct without a delivery receipt that has been verified by someone on the job site i.e. accounting cannot do their job because someone on the job site has not done their job.   

Note the activity has gone from a job site activity to an accounting activity. The activity is now a cross functional activity. When accounting has received the approved delivery ticket and the invoice from the vendor, then the invoice can be entered into the system to be paid. Timely payment of invoices is critical for people, material and tools to be in the correct place at the correct time.  

A similar process is followed with Work Orders, when a contractor submits a Pay Application, accounting verifies the amount of work being billed has been or will be finished by the end of the month with job site supervision. After invoices and pay applications have been approved, it is management’s job to make sure funds are available so the invoices can be paid on time.  

Consistently executing the Prime Directive needs teamwork from every team member from a laborer to an owner.  

Following a PO or WO from the time of issue to being paid illustrates a standard operating procedure (SOP) being followed to ensure team members have the information needed to do their job when the information is needed, and in good order.  

The first part of the Prime Directive is “planning”. Information does not get to where it needs to be when it needs to be without a plan.  

The next part of the Prime Directive is having the correct people, material and tools. Correctly issued PO and WO are necessary tools to have the correct subs, material and tools in the correct place at the correct time. Written SOPs provide a reference for a project’s leadership to understand what happens to a PO or WO after it has been issued. SOPs provide a reference for the accounting team to understand who should be providing them with PO, WO, and delivery tickets. Win for the project’s leadership. Win for the accounting team. A huge win for management because team members had the information needed to execute their responsibilities without having to ask and possibly interrupt management in the middle of a critical time sensitive task. 

Planning and SOPs help a contractor’s team better support each other in executing the Prime Directive. Support each other by catching mistake early enough that the Prime Directive is not violated. Almost every violation of the Prime Direction is a team failure with developed written processes.  

With a better understanding of how the field needs to support the back office and how the back office needs to support the field, a unified team will develop. Unified teams have each other’s back. The normal divide between the field and the back-office division will not develop. Unity is a key ingredient of an execution centric culture. Unified teams scale well.  

Support each other as a team to consistently support scaling to achieve Full Economic Value for all stakeholders. Team members are stakeholders. Scaling provides opportunities for professional growth and advancement for team members. Consistent sustained scaling is a win-win for all stakeholders.