When CIOs are faced with the task of digital transformation, a broader approach, rather than a specific, sequential one is what is more likely to succeed. This is where the concept of Fusion Teams comes in. The term “Fusion Teams” describes cross-functional teams that combine IT and business professionals. By bringing together these important stakeholders, the process leverages the strengths and the expertise of both domains, and in turn, accelerates digital transformation efforts to encourage innovation. 

This new multidisciplinary approach is turning heads because of its delivery value. Some of the benefits are: 

• Enhanced collaboration between teams as silos between IT and business teams get broken. 
• Combining business insight with IT agility to promote faster decision making. 
• Creative solutions from diverse perspectives leading to an increase in innovation. 
• Improved project outcomes as a result of aligning project goals with business objectives, driven by technical feasibility.  

But one of the biggest advantages of Fusion Teams is that it can be used to eliminate Shadow IT.  Shadow IT (unauthorized systems and solutions used without IT approval) poses a major cybersecurity risk. It is usually employed to bypass restrictions imposed, and causing security vulnerabilities, data inconsistencies and issues with regulatory compliance. 

The deployment of Fusion Teams must, however, be done in a strategic manner.  

1. Educate and make people aware about the risks of Shadow IT. 

2. Provide alternatives and tools that meet user needs. 

3. Enhance the agility of the IT department and improve their responsiveness to business needs. 

4. Foster open communication and encourage discussions between IT and business units on tool requirements and more. 

Implementing Fusion Teams 

Forming Fusion Teams must be done in an effective manner by building a strategy, selecting diverse members and clearly defining their roles within the team. There should then be approaches devised on how to manage these teams and how conflicts will be resolved, among other things. Ultimately, decisions must be taken on what tools and technologies can be deployed for collaboration and project management.  

Does the coming together of two diverse teams become a recipe for success or does it spell disaster? Fortunately the former, as organizations that have effectively implemented Fusion Teams have documented. Recently, a staffing firm used Fusion Teams and not only cut their average SLA completion time by 95% but also achieved of a 90% reduction in Excel and email work.

Measuring success through KPIs is essential to evaluate if Fusion Teams is indeed effective and addressing the threats from Shadow IT. It also makes room for continuous improvement, so that enterprises can refine their processes.  

Gartner came up with the concept of “Blended Teams”, aka Fusion Teams because companies were looking to build software engineering teams with more than just a set of coders. And it’s only looking up as the future of Business-IT collaboration is just beginning! There are many new trends and methodologies that are only further influencing this partnership. It also promises scalability as the same Fusion Team model can be expanded across the organization.

There is a saying about how collaboration is the essence of life. Much like the wind, bees and flowers work together to spread pollen, this kind of teamwork is needed in an organization to create a success story.  Fusion Teams foster a sense of sustained collaboration that most definitely result in organizations gaining competitive advantage.