Creating a Team Charter
A Team Charter is a tool a team can use to express their purpose and the environment they require and provide a point of reference to commit to creating this together. It is a living declarationstatement that servesacts as the North Star describing why the team exists, their principles, what they do and how they go about their work.
Building trust is essential for a team to move towards high levels of performance. Creating a Team Charter together is an opportunity to lay the foundations for team culture thatand underpins trust and performance.
In A Nutshell
A foundation of trust cannot be assumed, it has to be built. The effort spent by the team on building trust and developing a meaningful Team Charter together will help them to begin building trust that will enable them to pursue high levels of performance and results as a team.
Negotiating a Team Charter as a team helps build understanding and trust between the team members; making it visible for the whole team and using it to reflect on their performance and behaviours as a team, can help the team navigate the stages of forming-storming-norming-performing*. (* The Stages of Group Development - Bruce Tuckman, 1965)
A good Team Charter encapsulates the team’s values and how they will behave. The team will make it visible and keep it alive by referring back to it when things are going well and when things are not going so well
5 Things to Think About
Create Equal Voice
All members of the team must feel that they can participate honestly in the process of negotiating their Team Charter. Utilise techniques so that enable all participants to have agency to contribute honestly and without fear of judgement or ridicule, regardless of different personalities and behaviour.
Creating a ‘safe space’ is an important foundation for a team to participate in creating an effective Team Charter togetherworkshop. When people feel at liberty to contribute openly, they will be more willing to own the agreement that emerges and adopt the behaviours that reflect their Charter. It is also the case that being free to collaborate openly will produce a more meaningful outcome. To create a ‘safe space’ and facilitate ‘equal voice’ the participants must accept and foster ‘unconditional positive regard’ towards each other.
Making the team a safe place with equal voice for all team members will serve the team when they face problems in their work. It provides an environment of mutual trust that enables the team to collaborate robustly, debating different perspectives and learning to negotiate actionable ways to move forward.
Agree the Team Purpose
Purpose describes why the team exists, why its work is important and the value it will contribute. All members of the team must be clear on the team’s purpose. Who would miss the Team and the work they do if it was disbanded? Who benefits from the work of the team? How does the work of the team add value to their customers?
Agree the Team’s Product
“A product is a vehicle to deliver value. It has a clear boundary, known stakeholders, well-defined users or customers. A product could be a service, a physical product, or something more abstract.” The Scrum Guide 2020
To be effective in delivering value as a team, it’s important for everyone to be clear on their product definition, its purpose and how it delivers value for their customers.
Agree team principles for behaviour
The principles that underpin the team’s behaviours describe the team’s “how”. With an understanding of the Team Purpose and their Product, the team needs to agree on their ways of working. They will agree and document the values and behaviours that are acceptable and unacceptable.
Make the Charter visible
Whilst there are benefits from the activity of creating a Team Charter together, there is greater opportunity to develop as a team by observing the agreed behaviours and holding each other accountable to their agreed values and behaviours.
Display the Charter on the team’s board (virtual or physical), and refer to it when working together. Create a Team Page and share the Team Charter as a clear statement of the Team’s Purpose, the Product and how they will behave as they work together.
Making the Charter visible is about making it accessible for the Team to refer to easily, but it should not be allowed to become a piece of artwork that doesn’t enable the team to hold themselves accountable to their purpose, values and behaviours.
Consider Running a Workshop
A well planned and effectively facilitated workshop is an effective way for a team to create a Team Charter. A workshop facilitator can make use of many techniques to help a team collaborate effectively to create a meaningful and useful Team Charter.
Related Practices
Workshops are a significant investment of the time and intellect of the stakeholders involved - team, customers, leadership and others. It is essential that we strive to get the best outcomes we can achieve from every workshop that we execute. Effective workshop planning can give us a sequence of activities to lead participants from problem to solutions and prioritised actions.
A Team Charter is a tool a Team uses to check that their behaviours and ways of working are in line with their purpose and the environment they want to create together. It is a living declaration that provides a point of reference for inspecting and adapting what they do and how they go about their work.