Don't Manage Dependencies. Eliminate Them.
How managing a cafe taught me the power of a cross functional team
If you’ve taken a Scrum class (I’m a Kanban man myself), you’ve seen that Rugby clip—players sprinting downfield, pitching the ball just before getting crushed. American football has the same magic: different roles, one goal—score. A team isn’t just a group of people. It’s a group of people with the right skills working together to achieve a common goal.
In my experience, running a coffee shop isn’t just about making great coffee—it’s about having a team that can deliver great coffee, no matter what. My wife and I take pride in being able to solo a cup like a wood elf soloing a Balrog (Lord of the Rings reference, of course), but serving a crowd? That takes a team. As the proverb says…
To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together.
Here is a quick rundown of the skills (disciplines) we staff on any given shift at The Cafe at Centerpointe in Murfreesboro, TN.
Point of sale
Barista
Blended Drinks
Finishing/Dish Washing
Each café shift is a team—one person from each role, working together. Some are expert baristas, others are masters of blending drinks (our fan favorite Peanut Butter Heaven included). But to run the café well, we need all the skills in play. The more a team owns its process, the fewer dependencies it has. And when dependencies do pop up? The team should ruthlessly learn the skills needed to eliminate them.
This is crucial because many of the clients I coach work in the opposite way.
Teams Based on Discipline
One client, a financial institution, structures teams by discipline, not value. Designers sit together, creating assets for multiple projects. Writers, testers, and security teams do the same—each juggling requests across the company.
If our café worked this way, it would mean:
Baristas pulling shots for multiple coffee shops.
Order takers serving multiple locations.
Blended drink makers mixing for other teams, but never finishing drinks.
It sounds absurd, but this is how many organizations operate. Each team stays busy, but no single team delivers a finished product to a customer. Instead, work moves from one dependency to the next, creating bottlenecks, delays, and frustration.
This model doesn’t just slow down delivery—it kills ownership. No one owns value; they only own tasks. That’s why we need a better way...
A Better Way
Enter the empowered cross-functional team. If a product or service needs someone talking to customers, designing, building, writing, testing, and securing the solution, why not have people with those skills present on a single team? This puts the emphasis on the product, not the discipline. Instead of a team of order takers serving multiple coffee shops, you would have each coffee shop staffed with a team that had all the skills needed to successfully deliver the value of a cafe…amazing drinks.
This shift requires more than just restructuring—it demands leadership with the courage to trade control for trust. It’s easy to manage people by job title and measure “busyness.” It’s harder to build teams that own outcomes, where success isn’t just checking off tasks but delivering real value. The best leaders don’t optimize for control—they optimize for impact.
I’ve worked with teams that had a designer, an engineer, a writer, an SEO specialist, and security tech all present on the one team. They all focused on one product or service, and they delivered value lightyears faster.
The Efficiency Trap
So why don’t more organizations do this? Because of the dreaded need for efficiency.
“Tristan, the designer won’t have enough work to do. We need to keep them…BUSY.”
That four-letter word—BUSY—is killing American business. In the name of efficiency, we sacrifice impact.
In our café, not everyone is busy 100% of the time. Sometimes the order taker isn’t taking orders—so they jump in to do dishes, watch a barista pull a shot, or simply pause until they’re needed again. And that’s okay. Real value isn’t in being busy—it’s in finishing work that matters.
Some leaders resist this shift because they fear inefficiency. But you know what’s more expensive than having a developer test code? Not delivering value. Some would rather let work pile up than let a developer “put whip on top of the drink.” That’s how you create gridlock.
As my friend Brendan Wovchko says:
“Stop starting. Start finishing.”
Landing the Plane
The best shift your business can make? Ensure teams have all the skills they need to deliver value. Whether it’s building a product or crafting an unforgettable Peanut Butter Heaven, the principle is the same: Stop managing dependencies. Start eliminating them.
Until next time, Keep Learning, Keep Growing.