At Ramus, we believe that business, design, and engineering teams should work together in form of cross-functional teams.
This term is widely known, but our experience shows that most companies struggle to hire the right people to bring their vision from paper to a functional product.
In this short article, we will explain the roles and skills that are essential for a successful product team. Enjoy!
What is a cross-functional team?
A cross-functional team consists of different people with different disciplines. Together, they can cover the entire value chain, or product life cycle from discovery to development — almost like a “start-up in a box.”
Why is this important?
A smaller, versatile team can work closer together and has all the expertise (roles) to make informed decisions about the product they are building. This usually shortens the turn-around time compared to traditional project delivery teams, reduces inefficiencies, avoids bottlenecks, and enforces agility to respond to an ever-shifting environment.
So, what are the key roles I need to look for?
Business Analyst
The business analyst represents the sponsors and stakeholders. He gathers business requirements and shares them with the design team in form of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). Also, he is responsible for effective project planning, control, and communication overall.
Product Lead / Design Ops
The Product Lead / Design Ops is the project manager’s counterparty on the product side. He transforms business requirements into design requirements. He creates tasks (problems) that need to be solved, distributes and coordinates clearly among the design team.
UX Designer / Researcher
The UX researcher supports the design team in defining the experience a person has while using a user interface on a device. For this, he or she is required to gather data from inside and outside the organization to derive actionable insights that drive both strategic and tactical decision-making.
Content Writer
Content writers produce engaging content for use online. It is inevitable for realistic prototypes, or commercial products to contain relevant content. A new web appearance, for example, has to speak to a specific target audience and requires relevant content to attract business. For example, content should contain keywords aimed towards improving a website’s SEO.
Solution Architect
A solution architect is in charge of leading the practice and introducing the overall technical vision for a particular solution. He works closely with the development team to make sure the solution is technically feasible.
User Interface Designer
A user interface designer is in charge of visually designing each screen or page of a user interface and ensures that it follows the user journey and resembles the user flow a UX designer has laid out while respecting the branding and design guidelines.
Interaction Designer
Interaction = Action and Reponse
An interaction designer is specialized in designing responses of a user interface to an action taken by the user. Besides a visual change, motion and sound play an equally important role in creating delightful user experiences that guide users along the way.
Software Developer / Engineer
A software developer writes code based on the design specifications that he receives by the design team (Front-End), and the technical requirements (Back-End). Depending on the software you are building, different stacks may be required.
People can have multiple roles
It is common that in smaller companies, employees carry out multiple roles at the same time. The main reason for this is to keep the team leaner and labor costs lower.
For example, a Head of Design, or Head of Product could potentially have the role of a Business Analyst and Design Ops at the same time.
The same goes for a Product Designer, who works on UX Research, UI Design, and Interaction Design at the same time.
We at Ramus also work with multi-disciplinary people. In the next blog post, we will be talking about the high-level deliverables you can expect from a product team working on your product.
Meanwhile, if you have questions or feedback please feel free to reach out to hello@ramus.digital.
