Purpose

Establishing your team purpose

Teams always have a purpose, whether it is to work towards getting shelter, protection or raising a family on a basic level, to creating an output, production or creating something new. Without purpose there is no need for a team. 

To achieve the goal of the team there needs to be some societal or team norms, values, processes and behaviours that are expected. Without the norms you are simply a collection of individuals attempting to independently deliver an output. It can feel like people are pulling in different directions and the experience can be awful. 

The purpose of a team charter

A team charter is more about getting the structure right. A lot of managers I have worked with on creating a team charter would rather allow it to evolve naturally.

The purpose of the team charter is to help you understand your team project and its scope. When you are faced with a task you try to understand the resources available and who is going to do what. Yet we don't think of teams in the same way. We allow teams to bump into each other and hope things will work themselves out a lot of the time. 

Therefore the team charter helps you to go through the process of understanding your team and saves you time in the long run. It will make your team more efficient and productive. 

Ultimately a team charter will set you up for success and help minimise any potential future issues when the team starts to become dysfunctional. This is because you can refer back to your team charter and address any behaviours that may be causing issues.