A team charter can help bring everyone together, align around behaviours, expectations and values and ultimately your goals. In this course, we’ll walk you through the basics: what a team charter is, how to create one and why do it.
A key differentiator between a high performing and cohesive team and one that isn't is - clarity.
Clarity over the purpose and mission.
Clarity over the roles and responsibilities.
Clarity over behaviours, expectations and how decisions are made.
A team charter is a great way to open conversations in a team and discuss what great looks like. Involving the team in its creation means they own it, buy into it and commit to it.
A team charter also helps when introducing new team members and guides you in handling the more challenging conversations when someone doesn't meet team expectations.
Definition
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A Team
Team charters are documents that:
- Define the team purpose
- How it will work
- Define the expected outcomes.
A team charter is a living document fives direction, purpose and value to a team. As Simon Sinek says, it is the Why, How and What of a team. It communicates your team’s mission, scope, objectives, and commitment. If your running projects or matrix teams, you can also clarify timeframes, stakeholders and dependencies. The most effective team charters detail a team’s focus, direction, and boundaries. It gives clarity over roles, responsibilities and decision making.
It is essentially a road map that sets out, right at the beginning of the journey, the direction so everyone is on the right path and working towards defined outcomes and how the outcomes will be achieved.
Ideally Team Charters should be created when the team is formed and shared with all new starters as they join. It can increase progression through forming, storming, norming and performing. If you’ve been working together for a while, you might think you don’t need a team charter. However, it can help re-align the team and ensure that there is no ambiguity of those goals and expected standards between team members. It's a great teambuilding tool. When everyone contributes, it ensures that every member of the team buys into the contents of the charter.
Checklist
A team charter or rules of engagement will become your point of focus for everyone so they are clear about why you exist and how you will work together. I won’t lie, this is the point when most members often groan or start shuffling in their seats with resistance, but I promise you, it is time well spent.
Good teams don’t happen by accident. Before any team is initiated, do 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.
It helps with:
- behaviour management
- problem solving
- performance reviews
- roles and responsibility discussions
- onboarding new members of the team
A case study
I had the privilege to observe a British Touring Car team, Team Dynamics, during a race weekend. It was noisy, pressurised and everyone needed to deliver their peak performance during the race weekend.
There was no room for error.
In these pressure pots, I normally see cracks in team behaviours, but not in this team. The behaviour was professional, and they communicated clearly. They took instruction from the team manager via earpieces and acted on any instructions using their expertise and knowledge.
Everyone knew what their role was and stayed in their own lane. I asked the driver, Dan Cammish, what was going on in his mind when his car failed and he waited as the mechanics repaired his car in the pits – knowing that all the time he was losing precious qualifying time. He said he just focused on his game.
He totally trusted the others to do their job and send him back out when it was safe to do so. His life was in their hands and he totally trusted them.
How many of you can say that about your teammates?
Remember
"At the start of a new project or team formation there may be a lot of momentum and excitement and is tempting for team members to push ahead. However, failing to plan and communicate clearly can result in misunderstanding and miscommunication. Plan the team charter and involve team members in the creation to ensure buy in and understanding of expected outputs and norms."