How do you create a successful team charter?

In my professional journey, I have experienced that sometimes the scope is very limited in a few professionals like customer service.

From personal experience, this is an ideal place to share the values of the organisation as this charter is a living document. Also, another good add-on is sharing the behaviours you expect and defining what good looks like and what isn't acceptable. When people know the boundaries, it makes it easier for them.

If you want a good example of a team charter, it is hard to beat the one from the team that put together the Constitution of the United States in the 1780s: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Make sure that you have measures which demonstrate PROGRESS toward the goal, not just end-point measures. Measures which show improvement in meeting customer needs and desires will help you develop work-arounds to obstacles.

A sports analogy can be helpful to visualize the goals for a team. Imagine what a scoreboard and game recap would look like if your project was a game. What measures would you track? What would victory look like?

Having added measures along the journey, make sure you recognise how you will celebrate those achievements, as this is so often forgotten. Recognition is a great motivator for a lot of employees.

Love this. I’ve found it very helpful to use questions to have team members suggest some of their own responsibilities. It can create empowerment and ownership over them more than being given a list.

In my experience successful teams must be open for an ever changing environment. So many organizations are misaligned. Think of a basketball team and yes only five players are on the court at any given time - the bench is there for more than to give rest to the starters. Many players who aren’t starters have assigned roles in a competitive environment.

The most important roles to define are around agenda-setting and decision-making. Who makes decisions and sets the agenda? Clarifying that ahead of time will avert conflict and uncertainty down the road.

Consider sending a team member on temporary assignment to the work process upstream and downstream to develop understandings of quality issues and work difficulties in other teams and how they affect each other. Personal communication is much more effective than paper or electronic reports to other teams.

Understanding roles and expectations is critical, particularly in matrix structures where lack of role clarity can be a detriment to team performance. I recommend having each team member complete their list of strengths/weaknesses separately and then have the team come together to negotiate roles and tasks. Paring with a RAM/RACI can further clarify expectations.

Great nuggets! By communicating your expectations, it will ensure that everyone is on the same page. We always share our Team charter whenever someone new joins the team. We also re-introduce it at the beginning of the new year. It serves as a good reminder so our team knows what we value.

Great point, team charters must be a living document and shared and shared again to all members within the organization. And the team must be open for new perspectives.

When training new operations team members, one thing that we found made a tremendous impact was having some fun with a presentation about the top 10 things that "legendary team members do" in the role and juxtaposing that next to what the opposite looks like to create very clear expecations of what is celebrated vs what is not tolerated. Everyone wants to be celebrated and known as legendary so the bar was set.

It's useful to ensure that within 'hierarchical' teams where there is a designated 'manager' that the expectations of the manager as regards the team are aired - and crucially - that the team gets their chance to outline specifically what their expectations of the manager are! All too often the former happens but the latter doesn't!

I think this piece is key. It is not helpful to create a team charter only to have it filed away and forgotten. It should be a living document to be truly effective.

I would add in that review is critical, not just of the team charter, but also of the team's performance against the agreed goals, and also of the team development plan. The team needs to agree the timelines for each of these three areas and record this in their charter.

Consider adding a sub-section on "ground rules" to the norms section, including agreed-upon acceptable excuses for missing meetings, deadlines, etc., conflict management processes, and agreed standards and expectations for relational/interpersonal conflicts (something the team must avoid at all costs, at all times).

Building a strong team you have to leave by example.Its easy to build a team when you are working as hard as your team .We all be managers but it's hard work to really become a great leader.It takes determination to really be a great leader.Sometime it's good to take a little time to reflect on your life and how to improve your team and their life . Leaders should be focused on making a difference in their team life .

The secret to any team charter is to ensure it is kept 'alive'. Too many teams will create a team charter only for it to gather 'dust' and rarely be reviewed and utilised to keep the team performing and developing. Consider appointing a 'team champion' who has the responsibility for making sure that the charter and the team development plan is kept high on the team's agenda. And if this responsibility can be formalised within the 'team champion's' overall objectives then even better!