Since January I have been working on the Nampa Public Library’s new website design. Yes, it is June and we are preparing to launch soon.

We’ve been doing some great things with cross-functional groups here and the website redesign team is one example. We have a member from our circulation department, page department, management team, public services department and our public relations guy and we all have worked together to be innovative and productive in the website redesign process.

Our management team wanted to play a key role in the redesign and so they prepared parameters within which the redesign team would work. They reviewed other library and business websites and chose aspects of each they wanted to have included. The primary goal was to be a site designed for the user’s ease in navigation and download time.

Once the management team gave the redesign team the ball, the team met regularly to go over design options, architecture and layout. We also met to go over the progress of the site development and how to phrase things for the user to best understand what they were linking to (such as “magazines and newspapers” instead of “periodicals”).

The team works well together however, with us being from different departments and having different duties it was often hard to find time for all of us to meet or for us to do individual work on the website like reviewing the site and beta-testing. Granted, as the web person I had the most time to dedicate to the project but I also found that my regular duties sometimes made it more difficult for me to get done what I had projected.

Basically, I think a redesign team comprised of staff members from different departments is a good thing but there has to be a unity of purpose and time allotment of time granted for each participating member.

This article discusses ways to improve cross-functional team work. This article from 1997 discusses some of the ideas behind the development of cross-functional teams.