Building a Kickass Growth Team: Everything you need to succeed

Growth doesn’t happen by accident. The most successful B2B companies build dedicated growth teams with clear structures, processes, and goals. But there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating these teams.

This guide breaks down the exact six-step process for building a growth team that drives measurable results. You’ll learn the three primary growth team models, their advantages and disadvantages, and how to select the right structure for your organization.

The Three Growth Team Models

Before diving into the six-step process, let’s examine the three primary growth team structures. Each has distinct advantages and limitations that make them suitable for different organizational contexts.

1. Independent Growth Team

An independent growth team operates separately from the rest of the organization, reporting directly to a head of growth. Team members work full-time on growth initiatives as a dedicated unit.

This structure creates a clear line of authority and accountability. The head of growth manages various team members who all work exclusively on growth initiatives. This team typically includes specialists from different disciplines – marketing, product, engineering, data analysis – but they’re unified under growth leadership rather than their original departments.

Advantages:

• Freedom to make decisions and take risks without departmental constraints
• Faster execution with no competing priorities from other departments
• Team members can focus entirely on growth metrics without distraction
• Cross-functional collaboration happens naturally within the team
• Growth isn’t siloed as just a marketing or product problem
• Clear accountability for growth results
• Consistent prioritization methodology across all growth initiatives

Disadvantages:

• Can create friction with other departments who may feel excluded
• May create the perception that growth is “someone else’s responsibility” rather than a company-wide focus
• Unrealistic to have zero dependencies on other teams; will still need cooperation
• The head of growth may lack specialized expertise in all areas they’re managing
• Requires enough work to justify full-time roles for specialists
• Can create an “us vs. them” mentality with the rest of the organization
• May duplicate functions that exist elsewhere in the organization

Scaling approach: As independent teams grow, they typically split into multiple teams with different focus areas. For example, one team might focus on acquisition, another on activation, and a third on retention. Some organizations structure their entire company this way, with everyone part of a growth team rather than traditional departments.

As the company scales, these teams might further specialize by product line, customer segment, or geography. Each team maintains its independence while still reporting up through growth leadership.

2. Cross-Functional Growth Team

In this model, team members span across different departments but come together to work on growth initiatives. The growth team leader typically reports into one department – usually product or marketing.

Cross-functional teams don’t require people to leave their home departments. Instead, team members dedicate a portion of their time to growth initiatives while still reporting to their departmental leaders. For example, a marketing specialist might spend 40% of their time on growth team projects while remaining part of the marketing department organizational structure.

Advantages:

• Creates shared responsibility for growth across departments
• Brings diverse perspectives and ideas from different parts of the organization
• No need for a separate growth department or VP of growth
• Easier to implement in established organizations with strong departmental identities
• Team members maintain their specialized expertise and departmental connections
• Growth mindset spreads throughout the organization
• Lower organizational change barrier to getting started

Disadvantages:

• Adds organizational complexity with dual reporting relationships
• Team members face competing priorities between growth and departmental work
• Can create confusion about what to prioritize when conflicts arise
• Progress may be slower due to divided attention and loyalties
• Accountability can be diffused across multiple departments
• Scheduling challenges with team members having different primary commitments
• Growth initiatives may get deprioritized during departmental crunch times

Scaling approach: As cross-functional teams scale, they typically split by focus areas (acquisition, activation, retention) while maintaining representation across departments. Some organizations divide by product line, target audience, or geography depending on business needs.

The cross-functional approach can expand horizontally (more focus areas) and vertically (more levels of involvement). A company might have several cross-functional growth teams, each focused on different parts of the customer journey, with each team still drawing members from various departments.

3. Mix Model

As the name suggests, this combines elements of both previous models. It features cross-functional collaboration but includes a dedicated growth department with a head of growth who manages growth team members.

The mix model creates a growth department while still maintaining strong connections to other departments. Some team members work full-time on growth under the head of growth, while others contribute from their home departments. This creates a hub-and-spoke structure with the growth department at the center.

Advantages:

• Growth isn’t biased toward marketing or product priorities
• Creates shared responsibility while maintaining specialized expertise
• Encourages collaboration across functional boundaries
• Requires less organizational change than a fully independent structure
• Clear team membership makes coordination simpler
• Combines dedicated resources with cross-functional input
• Balances focused execution with organizational inclusion

Disadvantages:

• May reduce ownership of growth across departments if seen as “the growth team’s job”
• Creates confusion about which roles belong in growth vs. other departments
• Team members report to multiple leaders, creating competing priorities
• Potential political challenges over resource allocation and headcount
• Unclear decision-making authority on cross-functional issues
• Potential for duplicate or conflicting initiatives
• More complex communication channels

Scaling approach: Similar to cross-functional teams, with separate teams spanning different departments, plus the dedicated growth department.

As the organization grows, the mix model typically expands the core growth department while maintaining the cross-functional connections. Additional growth pods might form around specific focus areas, each with its own mix of dedicated growth team members and departmental contributors.

The Six-Step Process to Building Your Growth Team

Now that you understand the different models, let’s walk through the six-step process to build the right growth team for your organization.

Step 1: Analyze Key KPIs and Insights

Start by examining what’s driven growth in the past and what you expect to drive growth in the future. This analysis forms the foundation for your growth team’s focus and structure.

Identifying key growth metrics:
Begin by identifying which metrics have historically driven growth for your business. Look beyond vanity metrics to focus on actionable indicators that directly impact revenue and customer lifetime value. Common B2B growth metrics include:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer lifetime value (LTV)
• Conversion rates at each funnel stage
• Time to first value
• Expansion revenue
• Net revenue retention
• Activation rates for key features
• Referral rates and virality metrics

Dig into your analytics to understand which of these metrics have the strongest correlation to sustainable growth. Map out how these metrics connect to different departments – which teams currently influence each metric?

Future growth levers:
Next, analyze which areas offer the greatest potential for future growth. Ask:

• Where are our biggest conversion drop-offs?
• Which customer segments show the highest growth potential?
• What product features correlate with higher retention?
• Which acquisition channels have we underutilized?
• Where do we have data but lack focused optimization efforts?

Balancing short and long-term growth:
Growth teams need to balance quick wins with longer-term strategic initiatives. Map potential team members against both immediate and future needs. You don’t want to staff up for initiatives that are months away, but you also don’t want to rebuild your team structure every quarter.

Impact on team structure:
This analysis helps determine which structure makes the most sense. For example:

• If your organization is strongly marketing-led or product-led, a cross-functional model might work best, with the growth leader sitting in that dominant department.
• If your growth drivers span multiple departments equally, an independent or mix model might make more sense.
• If your focus areas change frequently, independent models become less practical since they’re harder to restructure. Cross-functional or mix models offer more flexibility as people can join or leave the growth team as priorities shift.
• If your key metrics cluster within one functional area, a cross-functional team housed within that function might be most effective.

The key insight here is understanding that your growth drivers should determine your team structure – not the other way around.

Step 2: Evaluate Your Current Organization

You’re not creating a growth team in a vacuum – you’re trying to solve specific challenges. A detailed assessment of your current organization will reveal which growth team model will be most effective.

Start by listing your organization’s biggest growth-related challenges in order of importance:

1. Focus: Struggling to concentrate on a few key initiatives instead of trying everything. This manifests as constantly shifting priorities, too many simultaneous initiatives, and a lack of clear success metrics.
2. Ownership: Difficulty getting people to take responsibility for experiments and their outcomes. This appears as initiatives that get started but not finished, unclear accountability for results, and finger-pointing when things don’t work.
3. Speed: Not moving fast enough to implement and learn. Watch for long approval processes, excessive planning relative to execution, and experiments that take months rather than weeks to implement.
4. Alignment: Lack of shared goals across departments. This shows up as departments optimizing for different (sometimes conflicting) metrics, leadership sending mixed messages about priorities, and resources being allocated inconsistently.
5. Collaboration: Departments not working together effectively. Look for handoff problems between teams, knowledge silos where information doesn’t flow, and a “not my job” mentality.
6. Knowledge: Missing expertise in critical areas. This appears as repeatedly postponed initiatives due to skill gaps, over-reliance on external vendors, and inability to properly analyze experiment results.

Matching challenges to team structures:

Your primary challenges should influence your team structure:

• Focus problems often benefit from an independent growth team where priorities can be clearly established without departmental distractions.
• Ownership issues might be best addressed with a mix model that establishes clear growth leadership while distributing responsibility.
• Speed challenges typically respond well to an independent structure that eliminates competing priorities and streamlines decision-making.
• Alignment problems can be improved with a cross-functional model that brings different departments together around shared growth goals.
• Collaboration difficulties often need a cross-functional approach to break down silos and create shared objectives.
• Knowledge gaps might require an independent team where you can hire specialized talent or a mix model that combines new expertise with existing resources.

Assessing growth readiness:

Beyond identifying challenges, evaluate how ready your organization is for a dedicated growth function. Ask these questions:

• Does leadership value experimentation and data-driven decision making?
• Is there tolerance for failure as part of the learning process?
• Do you have basic analytics and tracking in place to measure impact?
• Can your current tech stack support rapid testing and iteration?
• Are there influential people who can champion the growth approach?

The answers to these questions won’t necessarily change which model you choose, but they will affect your implementation approach and timeline.

Identifying potential team members:

Finally, identify who might be part of your initial growth team. Look for:

• People who already demonstrate a growth mindset
• Team members who use data to make decisions
• Those who have shown initiative in optimizing their areas
• Individuals with cross-functional experience or relationships
• People respected by multiple departments
• Those who have shown curiosity about why metrics move, not just what moved them

These individuals will form the core of your growth team, regardless of which structure you choose.

Step 3: Start Small

Even in large organizations, start with just one growth team rather than a full reorganization. This approach allows you to build momentum, demonstrate value, and refine your process before scaling.

Selecting your pilot focus:

Choose an initial focus area based on three criteria:

1. Impact potential: Where can you drive meaningful results quickly?
2. Control: Where do you have sufficient autonomy to implement changes?
3. Measurement: Where can you clearly attribute results to your efforts?

Typically, a single part of the funnel (acquisition, activation, or retention) or a specific customer segment makes a good starting point. Avoid trying to tackle the entire customer journey at once.

Real-world example:

One client with hundreds of employees started with a single team in one sub-brand, focusing on just one or two high-impact areas. This represented a major shift – moving from months-long implementation cycles to two-week sprints.

The team started by optimizing the onboarding flow for new customers, which had a direct impact on activation rates. They implemented simple UI changes, revised email sequences, and improved help documentation – all changes they could execute quickly with minimal dependencies.

After six months of proven results – a 22% improvement in activation metrics – another sub-brand requested the same approach, allowing for organic expansion. The success created internal demand for the growth approach rather than having to push it onto resistant departments.

Setting the right expectations:

For your pilot growth team, set clear but realistic expectations:

• Establish baseline metrics before you start
• Set specific goals for improvement
• Define a timeline for the initial test period (typically 3-6 months)
• Clarify how success will be measured
• Communicate the experimental nature of both the initiatives and the team structure

Be transparent that you’re not just testing growth initiatives but also the growth team model itself. This gives you the flexibility to adjust your approach based on what you learn.

Documenting learning:

During this pilot phase, document everything:

• Which processes work well and which don’t
• Where you encounter resistance or bottlenecks
• How long different types of experiments take to implement
• Which departments are easiest/hardest to collaborate with
• What resources you most frequently need but don’t have

This documentation becomes invaluable when you expand to additional teams or areas of focus. You can anticipate challenges and adjust your approach accordingly.

Starting small also lets you work through initial challenges in your process before replicating it elsewhere. You’ll make mistakes – everyone does when implementing growth teams – but you’ll only have to fix them once rather than across multiple teams simultaneously.

Step 4: Choose Your Model and Leader

Based on your analysis from steps 1-3, select the growth team model that best fits your organization’s needs, considering the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Decision framework for model selection:

Consider these factors when choosing your model:

1. Organizational maturity: Younger companies or startups often do better with independent models where speed is critical, while established organizations might need the inclusivity of cross-functional or mix models.
2. Growth phase: Companies in hyper-growth often benefit from dedicated independent teams, while companies in optimization mode might do better with cross-functional approaches.
3. Company size: Larger organizations typically need more structured approaches like the mix model, while smaller companies can operate effectively with independent teams.
4. Cultural factors: Organizations that value autonomy might prefer independent teams, while collaborative cultures often do better with cross-functional approaches.
5. Leadership buy-in: If executive support is limited, a cross-functional approach might be easier to implement initially than a full independent structure.

Create a decision matrix that weights these factors according to your organization’s specific situation to guide your choice.

Selecting your growth leader:

Then, decide who will lead your growth team. This person doesn’t necessarily need a growth background, but should have specific qualities:

• Data orientation: Comfortable with metrics, analysis, and making data-backed decisions
• Customer empathy: Deep understanding of customer needs, pain points, and behaviors
• Cross-functional credibility: Respected across different departments
• Experimental mindset: Willing to test ideas, learn from failures, and iterate quickly
• Communication skills: Able to translate complex findings into actionable insights
• Strategic thinking: Can balance short-term optimization with long-term growth
• Execution focus: Drives completion, not just ideation
• Business acumen: Understands how growth initiatives connect to business outcomes

CRO specialists, product managers, and growth marketers can all excel in this role with the right mindset. The technical background matters less than these fundamental qualities.

Examples of effective growth leaders:

• A CRO specialist who has demonstrated the ability to look beyond conversion rates to overall business impact
• A product manager with a track record of data-driven feature prioritization
• A digital marketer who has expanded beyond campaign metrics to focus on customer lifetime value
• An analyst who has shown initiative in turning insights into actionable recommendations

The right leader will set the tone for your growth team’s culture and effectiveness, so this decision deserves significant consideration.

Step 5: Define Your Process

A clear process is critical for growth team success. Without well-defined workflows, even the best team structure will falter. Here’s how to create a comprehensive growth process:

KPI structure:

Establish clear metrics at three levels:

1. North Star Metric: The single most important measure of growth success (e.g., MRR, active users, etc.)
2. Driver Metrics: The 3-5 key metrics that most directly influence your North Star
3. Project Metrics: Specific measures for individual experiments and initiatives

Create a dashboard that shows these metrics hierarchically so team members understand how their work connects to the bigger picture.

Define reporting cadences for different audiences:

• Daily or weekly updates for the growth team
• Bi-weekly updates for immediate stakeholders
• Monthly updates for executive leadership

Sprint structure:

Most growth teams operate in 1-2 week sprints. Establish a clear rhythm:

• Sprint Planning: Set priorities and allocate resources for the coming sprint
• Growth Meetings: Regular check-ins to review progress and address blockers
• Ideation Sessions: Dedicated time for generating new experiment ideas
• Analysis Reviews: In-depth examination of completed experiment results
• Retrospectives: Periodic assessment of the process itself

Document specific agendas for each meeting type to maintain focus and efficiency. For example, a growth meeting might follow this structure:

1. Quick update on key metrics (5 minutes)
2. Status of in-progress experiments (10 minutes)
3. Results from completed experiments (15 minutes)
4. Discussion of blockers or challenges (15 minutes)
5. Decisions and next steps (5 minutes)

Documentation and knowledge management:

Develop systems for:

• Experiment tracking: Template for hypothesis, methodology, results, and learnings
• Growth backlog: Prioritized list of potential experiments and initiatives
• Results repository: Searchable database of past experiments with outcomes
• Resource library: Collection of research, customer insights, and growth frameworks

These systems ensure continuity of knowledge even as team members change and prevent the team from repeating unsuccessful experiments.

Prioritization framework:

Establish a consistent method for prioritizing initiatives. Common approaches include:

• ICE scoring: Impact, Confidence, Ease (each rated 1-10)
• PIE framework: Potential, Importance, Ease
• Cost-benefit analysis: Expected value versus implementation cost

The specific framework matters less than having a consistent approach that the team understands and applies uniformly.

Stakeholder involvement:

Design mechanisms for involving non-team members:

• Idea submission portal: Where anyone in the company can suggest growth experiments
• Office hours: Regular time slots when growth team members are available for consultation
• Results sharing: Newsletters or internal posts highlighting key findings and wins
• Cross-functional reviews: Periodic sessions where other departments can provide input

Effective stakeholder involvement extends the team’s reach and prevents the perception that growth happens in isolation.

Communication channels:

Define which communication tools to use for different purposes:

• Synchronous communication: For urgent matters requiring immediate attention
• Asynchronous updates: For routine progress reports and non-urgent information
• Documentation: For permanent knowledge capture and sharing
• Decision records: For tracking important choices and their rationale

Establish norms around response times, meeting preparation, and information sharing to maintain efficiency and clarity.

Without a strong structure, the fast pace of growth experimentation quickly becomes chaotic. But with these processes in place, your team can move quickly while still maintaining order and focus.

Step 6: Set Expectations and Continuously Improve

The final step – which never really ends – is setting clear expectations across the organization and continuously refining your approach based on what you learn.

Defining expectations internally:

Create a clear communication plan to introduce your growth team to the broader organization:

• Purpose and goals: Why the growth team exists and what it aims to accomplish
• Team structure: Who’s involved and how they relate to existing departments
• Working process: How the team operates and makes decisions
• Collaboration model: How others can engage with the growth team
• Success metrics: How the team’s impact will be measured

Address common misconceptions proactively:

• The growth team isn’t exempt from company policies and processes
• Growth isn’t solely responsible for company performance
• The team doesn’t have unlimited authority to change anything
• Growth initiatives don’t automatically take priority over other work

Explain how this approach addresses existing challenges and creates value for the entire organization. Frame the growth team as a resource that makes everyone more successful, not a separate entity with special privileges.

Communication channels:

Establish regular touchpoints to keep the organization informed:

• Launch announcement with executive sponsorship
• Regular updates in company meetings
• Dedicated Slack channel or internal newsletter
• Growth wins dashboard visible to all employees
• Lunch and learns to share methodologies and results

Make it clear that the process will evolve based on feedback and learning. This sets the expectation that you’re building a capability, not implementing a fixed solution.

Continuous improvement framework:

Implement a structured approach to refining your growth process:

1. Regular retrospectives: Dedicated sessions to examine what’s working and what isn’t
2. Process metrics: Tracking how efficiently your growth function operates (e.g., experiment velocity, implementation time, etc.)
3. Feedback mechanisms: Anonymous surveys, one-on-ones, and facilitated discussions
4. Benchmarking: Comparing your approach to industry standards and best practices
5. External perspectives: Occasional outside review from consultants or advisors

Include process updates in growth meetings to signal that improvement is an ongoing priority. This encourages team members to raise issues and suggest enhancements.

Gathering actionable feedback:

While team meetings can surface some issues, deeper problems often remain hidden. Use multiple approaches to gather honest feedback:

• Anonymous surveys: Allow team members to share concerns without attribution
• One-on-one conversations: Private discussions often reveal issues not raised in groups
• Third-party facilitation: External facilitators can help surface sensitive topics
• Cross-functional input: Ask partner teams about their experience working with the growth team

Look for patterns in feedback rather than reacting to individual comments. Prioritize improvements that address recurrent themes or significant barriers.

Evolving your growth function:

As your growth team matures, focus on:

• Moving from quantity to quality of experiments: Initially, building momentum through frequent experiments is key. Later, focus on developing stronger hypotheses and more impactful tests.
• Avoiding status-update meetings: Growth meetings should shift from status updates to strategic conversations. Send updates ahead of time and use meeting time for questions like “What will prevent us from achieving this?” or “What’s the most impactful thing we can do this sprint?”
• Improving planning accuracy: As you gain experience, your planning becomes more realistic and your execution more efficient. Track your completion rate to measure improvement.
• Narrowing focus: You’ll get better at identifying the highest-leverage initiatives and saying no to distractions.

Expect your growth function to evolve substantially in its first year. What starts as a pilot team might grow into multiple teams, change its reporting structure, or shift its focus areas based on what you learn.

Evolution of Your Growth Team

A growth team isn’t a static entity – it should evolve as your organization changes and as you learn what works. Here’s how growth teams typically mature over time:

Phase 1: Establishing Credibility (0-6 months)

In the first phase, focus on:

• Running simple, high-confidence experiments with clear results
• Building operational processes that work smoothly
• Establishing trust with stakeholders through transparent communication
• Developing baseline metrics and benchmarks
• Creating momentum through regular experiment cadence

Success in this phase is measured by experiment velocity, process adherence, and initial wins that demonstrate potential.

Phase 2: Expanding Impact (6-12 months)

As the team gains confidence and credibility:

• Tackle more complex, higher-impact experiments
• Refine prioritization to focus on biggest opportunities
• Deepen analytical capabilities to extract more insights
• Expand cross-functional involvement
• Start building growth models that predict outcomes

Success metrics shift toward impact per experiment, not just quantity of experiments.

Phase 3: Scaling the Approach (12+ months)

With proven success, the growth function can scale:

• Expand to multiple teams with different focus areas
• Develop specialized expertise within the growth function
• Create playbooks that capture proven approaches
• Build automatic optimization systems for routine growth levers
• Integrate growth thinking into product development and strategic planning

At this stage, success is measured by sustainable growth metrics and the integration of growth methodologies throughout the organization.

Signs it’s time to change your model:

Watch for these indicators that your growth team structure needs evolution:

• Diminishing returns: The current structure no longer produces significant results
• Scaling friction: The team can’t expand its impact without structural changes
• Organizational mismatch: Company changes have made the current model less effective
• Resource constraints: The team consistently lacks critical capabilities
• Cultural disconnect: The growth function feels increasingly isolated from the main organization

When these signs appear, revisit your team structure using the same six-step process, incorporating what you’ve learned.

Managing team dynamics during transitions:

As your growth function evolves:

• Communicate changes clearly with context about why they’re happening
• Involve team members in redesigning processes and structures
• Acknowledge what’s working well and should be preserved
• Create continuity in key relationships and initiatives during transitions
• Celebrate successes of the previous model while embracing the new direction

Growth teams must embody the very principles they promote – experimentation, learning, and adaptation. The structure that works today might not be right in six months, and that’s perfectly normal in this rapidly evolving discipline.

Conclusion

Building an effective growth team isn’t about following a rigid template – it’s about understanding your organization’s unique challenges and creating a structure that addresses them.

By following this six-step process, you can build a growth team that drives meaningful results while continuously improving its approach:

1. Analyze key KPIs and insights to determine your focus areas
2. Evaluate your current organization to identify challenges and opportunities
3. Start small with a pilot team in a high-impact area
4. Choose the right model and leader based on your specific situation
5. Define clear processes that enable rapid experimentation and learning
6. Set expectations and continuously improve your approach

Start small, learn quickly, and adapt your structure as you grow. The key is to begin – even an imperfect growth function is better than none at all. You can refine your approach as you gain experience and demonstrate value.

Remember that the most successful growth teams aren’t defined by their organizational chart but by their mindset: data-driven, customer-focused, and willing to experiment their way to breakthrough results. With the right structure and process, your growth team can become a powerful engine for sustainable B2B success.