In most workplaces, people are grouped by their roles. Designers work with designers, developers with developers, and testers with testers. So even to deliver one feature, work has to pass through several teams, waiting at each handoff.
Agile tries to solve this by bringing different skills into one team, so it can take a feature from start to finish without depending on other teams.
That should remove a lot of waiting. But can it remove all of it?
A large product might still need several teams to build something together. Security experts might be shared across the company. Clients still need to approve work, and managers still have to decide which priorities come first.
If you've worked in a team that had all the skills needed to deliver a feature, what still prevented it from moving forward on its own? Was it a delay caused by other teams, decisions, approvals, or something else entirely?
I'm trying to understand where cross-team dependencies genuinely disappear and where they simply take another form.
Capability, capacity & competency are just three elements needed to enable flow. Downstream or upstream bottlenecks and overly onerous administrative or governance requirements are just a few reasons why a good team might still have delivery issues.
Kiron
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1 reply by Sandeep Kashyap
Oct 19, 2026 8:23 AM
Sandeep Kashyap
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That’s a good distinction. Having the right skills within a team doesn’t necessarily mean work can flow freely. Even a capable team can get stuck if upstream inputs arrive late, downstream teams can’t absorb the output, or governance adds unnecessary waiting time.
I think we need to look beyond individual teams and examine how the whole system works. Are teams able to make decisions and move work forward, or are they constantly waiting for something outside their control?
Capability, capacity & competency are just three elements needed to enable flow. Downstream or upstream bottlenecks and overly onerous administrative or governance requirements are just a few reasons why a good team might still have delivery issues.
Kiron
That’s a good distinction. Having the right skills within a team doesn’t necessarily mean work can flow freely. Even a capable team can get stuck if upstream inputs arrive late, downstream teams can’t absorb the output, or governance adds unnecessary waiting time.
I think we need to look beyond individual teams and examine how the whole system works. Are teams able to make decisions and move work forward, or are they constantly waiting for something outside their control? Saving Changes...
Even if a team has all the skills needed to deliver a feature, several factors can still prevent it from moving forward. Teams may face delays due to change management approvals, business, management, or stakeholder sign-offs, urgent high-priority tasks, shared team members working on complex projects, or team member resignations that create knowledge gaps and reduce capacity.
Dependencies on upstream or downstream data and deliverables can delay development, testing, or deployment. Ambiguity around functionality, module ownership, or decision-making between teams can also create bottlenecks.
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1 reply by Sandeep Kashyap
Nov 11, 2026 5:55 AM
Sandeep Kashyap
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That's a good point. I would add that having all the necessary skills doesn't necessarily mean having all the necessary resources available when needed. Shared specialists, competing priorities, and knowledge gaps can still create dependencies. Perhaps the bigger challenge is not just building cross-functional teams, but ensuring they have predictable access to the people, information, and decisions they depend on.
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
Sandeep, I think one of the biggest obstacles is having the skills to deliver but not the authority to make the decisions needed to move forward. A cross-functional team may be technically self-sufficient, yet still depend on external approvals, shifting organizational priorities, or decisions that take too long. For me, the question is whether the organization has given the team enough decision-making autonomy to actually use them.
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1 reply by Sandeep Kashyap
Nov 11, 2026 5:56 AM
Sandeep Kashyap
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That’s an interesting observation. I've often felt that teams can be made cross-functional on paper but still operate within traditional hierarchies. One thing worth considering is defining decision boundaries upfront, so teams know what they can resolve independently and what genuinely needs escalation. That can make a significant difference to delivery speed.
Even if a team has all the skills needed to deliver a feature, several factors can still prevent it from moving forward. Teams may face delays due to change management approvals, business, management, or stakeholder sign-offs, urgent high-priority tasks, shared team members working on complex projects, or team member resignations that create knowledge gaps and reduce capacity.
Dependencies on upstream or downstream data and deliverables can delay development, testing, or deployment. Ambiguity around functionality, module ownership, or decision-making between teams can also create bottlenecks.
That's a good point. I would add that having all the necessary skills doesn't necessarily mean having all the necessary resources available when needed. Shared specialists, competing priorities, and knowledge gaps can still create dependencies. Perhaps the bigger challenge is not just building cross-functional teams, but ensuring they have predictable access to the people, information, and decisions they depend on.
Sandeep, I think one of the biggest obstacles is having the skills to deliver but not the authority to make the decisions needed to move forward. A cross-functional team may be technically self-sufficient, yet still depend on external approvals, shifting organizational priorities, or decisions that take too long. For me, the question is whether the organization has given the team enough decision-making autonomy to actually use them.
That’s an interesting observation. I've often felt that teams can be made cross-functional on paper but still operate within traditional hierarchies. One thing worth considering is defining decision boundaries upfront, so teams know what they can resolve independently and what genuinely needs escalation. That can make a significant difference to delivery speed. Saving Changes...
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