Want to be a Great Team? Build a Charter in 2024!

How to make a Team Charter

Regardless of your organisation’s size, working as part of a team is both tricky and rewarding. Everyone on the team brings their own skill sets, experiences, strengths, and challenges — which can foster collaboration or introduce obstacles. You’re expected to juggle numerous projects together, progress quickly, and move with agility. And while you all share the same goals, your individual objectives might differ. How does everyone stay on the same page?

It’s especially challenging in today’s workplace, where teams made up of employees working remotely or partially remotely, in different time zones, and across different office hubs need to stay aligned. Your team may be working asynchronously, but you want to make sure you’re producing synchronously. It’s not easy!

A team charter can help bring everyone together and concretise your goals. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the basics: what a team charter is, how to create one, and some examples to motivate and inspire you.

What is a Team Charter?

A team charter is a living document that serves as a North Star for a team or project. It articulates your team’s mission, scope of operation, objectives, and commitment. For a project, it can also spell out a timeframe and its consequences. The most effective team charters detail a team’s focus, direction, and boundaries. It reduces confusion, duplication, and repetition.

When to make a Team Charter

When we work with teams, we find the best time to make a charter is that the start of the year or then mid year. It literally can take 1-2 hours to build and like any sporting team -

you need time off the field to plan and strategise how you will play on the field!

Creating a team charter can be a fantastic way to establish guidelines, goals, and expectations for a group. Here's a template you might find useful:

1. Purpose and Objectives:

• Define the team's purpose, its main objectives, and what it aims to achieve.
• Clarify the scope of the team's responsibilities and its role within the organisation.

2. Team Values and Norms:

• Establish shared values and norms that guide behavior and interactions within the team.
• Discuss communication styles, respect, openness, and inclusivity.

3. Roles and Responsibilities:

• Clearly define individual roles, responsibilities, and expectations of each team member.
• Outline the decision-making process and who holds the final authority in different situations.

4. Goals and Milestones:

• Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for the team.
• Identify milestones or checkpoints to track progress and celebrate achievements.

5. Communication and Collaboration:

• Determine communication channels (email, meetings, collaboration tools) and frequency of updates.
• Encourage open communication, active listening, and constructive feedback among team members.

6. Conflict Resolution:

• Establish a protocol for addressing conflicts or disagreements within the team.
• Outline steps for conflict resolution, including who to approach and how to seek resolution.

7. Accountability and Evaluation:

• Define how performance will be evaluated and measured against team goals.
• Determine accountability measures and how members will be held responsible for their commitments.

8. Review and Revisions:

• Schedule periodic reviews to assess the charter's effectiveness and make necessary revisions.
• Allow for flexibility to adapt the charter as the team evolves or as circumstances change.

Creating a team charter should involve input from all team members to ensure buy-in and commitment to its principles. It's a living document that should evolve as the team grows and faces new challenges.

Here are some links to making a team charter -

• https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/what-is-this-team-for-and-why-am-i-here/
• https://www.mindtools.com/awmtnvc/team-charters

Contact the team at [email protected] for a team charter template or if you need outstanding team building coaches to help you develop your own powerful team charter today!

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Making the transition from team member to team leader is both exciting and daunting. Our programs give executives, future, first time and frontline leaders the knowledge, skills and practical tools they need to thrive. The focus is on personal growth, communicating with impact and motivating people to achieve.

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