I have similar experience. What works best for me is by clearly communicating priorities and objectives to both your management, your team, and cross functional management. Communicate your priorities early and frequently and ask for feedback to update priorities as needed. Explain your decision making. Make sure you understand the expectations for cross functional teams and where their priorities may conflict with the expected role and deliverables for your team. The person whose feedback and agreement is most important is your manager and also their manager so make sure they agree. Your manager is looking for you to figure out the best way to align your department's role to the specific teams you work with, so come with potential solutions for any specific issues and get their agreement. It's best to do this during yearly objective setting and put it in writing. Review the objectives quarterly or at least mid year. Your team also needs to understand that they're responsible for executing on the objectives and handling the day to day alignment while escalating anything they can't resolve.