Modern CRM Transformation - Part 9: Structuring Teams for CRM Transformation Success

Signal Boost: "Unfinished Sympathy" by Massive Attack
A classic from my Uni days that balances individual voices with shared purpose, much like cross-functional CRM delivery teams.

When people think about CRM transformations, they often jump straight to technology: platforms, integrations, features.

But the real secret to transformation success? The way you structure and empower your teams.

I’ve seen it before: brilliant platforms undermined by disjointed teams, endless handoffs, unclear ownership, and lost momentum.

We knew early on that the old model, siloed functions, top-down decision making, would not deliver the CRM platform we wanted.

We needed something different.

Here’s how we structured teams during the transformation programme to keep delivery flowing, collaboration strong, and ownership real.

Core Principles That Shaped Our Team Design

Before we drew any boxes or roles, we aligned around a few key principles:

• Cross-functional teams over functional silos.
• Stable missions over temporary project groups.
• Direct collaboration over escalation.
• Outcome ownership over task ownership.
• Technical enablement as a first-class citizen.

These principles shaped every decision about how we organised people.

Programme Team Structure

The transformation programme was built around three main layers.

1. Value Stream Delivery Teams

Each major value stream had a dedicated, cross-functional delivery team focused on a clear business outcome.

Examples of Value Streams:

• Customer Onboarding
• Customer Service and Support
• Partner Management
• Policy Administration

Each Value Stream Team included:

• Product Manager: Outcome owner and priority setter.
• Functional Consultants: Dynamics 365 experts shaping the platform.
• Engineers: Building integrations, customisations, and extensions.
• Business Analysts: Driving discovery and shaping user stories.
• Testers (QA): Embedded or shared, owning quality.
• UX Support: Available on-demand for design and usability.

Mission example:

"Reduce onboarding time while improving customer and staff experience."

Example of real collaboration:
During user testing, a functional consultant, an engineer, and a business analyst worked side-by-side to refine a new onboarding flow, iterating live based on feedback — no handoffs needed.

The teams were autonomous enough to own their roadmaps, but connected enough to avoid duplication and chaos.

2. Platform Enablement Team

We stood up a separate, dedicated team focused purely on the health, scalability, and evolution of the CRM platform.

Platform Team responsibilities:

• Managing technical debt
• Owning the API gateway and integration standards
• Maintaining CI/CD pipelines and environments
• Managing Dynamics upgrades and patches
• Supporting clean architecture patterns

Example of impact:
By proactively managing version upgrades, the platform team helped avoid three-month upgrade freezes that had crippled previous CRM platforms.

This team enabled delivery without becoming a bottleneck.
They didn’t just fix things — they empowered others to move faster.

3. Programme Leadership Group

Rather than a traditional PMO, we set up a lightweight leadership group that included:

• Programme Director
• Product Director (or equivalent)
• Lead Architect
• Engineering Lead
• Delivery Lead

Their role wasn’t to micromanage. It was to:

• Clear blockers fast.
• Manage strategic risks early.
• Align delivery with business outcomes.
• Protect team stability and focus.

Leadership met weekly in short, focused sessions — no endless status theatre.

How Collaboration Actually Worked

It wasn't just structure that mattered — it was behaviours:

• Quarterly Joint Planning: Spot dependencies before they became problems.
• Daily Direct Communication: Slack, huddles, quick calls — no heavy governance.
• Dependency Walls: Visible tracking of cross-team needs.
• Open Product Reviews: Live demos, outcomes shared widely across teams.

The cultural norm was simple:

"Solve it together first. Escalate only when you must."

And it worked.

Challenges We Faced (and How We Adapted)

Role Confusion:
At first, some people struggled with new responsibilities (e.g., engineers participating directly in discovery).
We invested in coaching and normalised learning through "safe to try" experiments.

Team Stretch:
When business demands spiked, there was pressure to form temporary tiger teams.
We resisted unless absolutely necessary, protecting mission stability.

Dependency Management:
Some dependencies still slipped. We kept refining our visibility tools and accountability norms without resorting to heavy central policing.

What It All Comes Down To

By structuring the programme around cross-functional, outcome-focused teams, we created:

• Faster, cleaner delivery flow.
• Earlier surfacing of risks and blockers.
• Higher team morale and lower burnout.
• Stronger connection between technical delivery and business value.

And maybe most importantly: We built the foundations of a sustainable CRM Product Organisation ready for life after launch.

The structure wasn't perfect. But it was alive. And it grew with us.

We didn’t just deliver a platform. We grew a resilient, adaptive organisation ready for whatever came next.

Next Up: Part 10: The First 90 Days After Go-Live.
How to run the first 90 days post-launch to transition from project to product.