Creating Your Team Charter

Strong teams don’t happen by accident. So before any team is initiated, make sure you create a team charter. It can be part of project initiation, an annual team building event or simply introduced into quarterly strategy sessions to review the charter.  

Step One:

Gather your team together and share your vision, mission and how you would like to see the team working together. Paint a picture of what a good team looks like to you.  

Make sure you completed the previous lesson which explains the importance of establishing a team purpose.

Step Two:

Ask the team to answer the following questions. Genuinely encourage challenge and debate. Underpin conversations with your company values and behaviours and allow them to develop their perfect team.  

Now before I do this, I always share a set of rules that everyone must agree too. As a facilitator, this is really important. My general rules are that everyone’s opinions are valid. No one gets to be right, or feel like they are wrong. Don’t get personal by focusing on the behaviour, rather than the person. Instead of saying ‘You are arrogant’, say ‘Sometimes your language can appear arrogant.’ Ask for what you need and speak your truth. You might come up with some others, but the aim is to create an environment of safety. 

Step Three:

Before you start, ask your team the following questions to get everyone thinking: 

1. What is the purpose of this team?  
2. What is the strategy or what are the big priorities in the next year/project period?  
3. What are the common goals and how will you know when you have achieved them?  
4. Who is responsible for doing what within the team?  
5. How will the team members behave with each other?  
6. What are the underpinning values and culture of the team or business? 
7. What resources are available to the team or business?  
8. How will the team make decisions?  
9. How often does the whole team meet, communicate and share?  
10. What does done look like?  
11. How will the team celebrate success?

Step Four:

Now it is time to create your team charter. 

The format of the charter can depend on the situation and can take various forms. You can adapt your charter to include the following elements to your team’s situation. 

• Context 
• Mission and objectives 
• Composition and Roles 
• Authority and Boundaries 
• Resources and Support 
• Operations 
• Negotiation and Agreement 

Use the worksheet below to get you started on building the foundations of your team charter. You will be asked questions to get you thinking about what you want to see within your team as well as examples of how to document your teams preferences.