Teams have the potential to be greater than the sum of their parts, so get everyone aligned and working well together with a team charter.
It’s a common knowledge that a team is more than a sum of individuals – it’s a living organism that constantly evolves. And while movement and change are good things, this also means the interaction between team members might be chaotic at times.
To direct team efforts to the right place, some rules and guiding principles need to be established.
There is a great tool that will help coordinate the activity of a team, and it’s called a team charter. It ensures that every single person on a team knows what to do, why, and when - this way creating cohesion and driving success.
In this article, we will discuss what team charters are and how to create one to improve team collaboration.
A team charter is a document that outlines a team’s shared goals, values, and strategies. Its function is to align the efforts of all team members to help them become a high-performing team and achieve a common vision.
In a way, a team charter is a blueprint that contains all the necessary information for a team to work together coherently, at the same time being a visual guidance that team members can refer to anytime.
It’s important to remember that a team charter is not the same as a project charter. A team charter is about teams, which means it can determine their collaboration on more than one project. A project charter, on the contrary, describes the requirements for one specific project.
Again, the main purpose of a team charter is to create team alignment and provide clarity for all the key stakeholders in terms of their collaboration. This is achieved through:
A team charter is a great management tool that makes a team's collaborative process much easier and more effective, ensuring project success. In particular, it offers the following benefits:
Transparency, which is the principle of openness and honesty, is a relatively new trend in business. However, its power is inarguable. By sharing information, leadership demonstrates high levels of trust, and this creates positive team dynamics: people start to feel like a valued part of the team, which encourages them to contribute more, and that inevitably leads to better results.
Besides, when roles are crystal clear, it’s impossible to avoid responsibility – and this also motivates people to do their best and not to let their teams down. This increases accountability.
Team charters ensure that all team members, leadership, and customers have a clear understanding of what they work on, why, and what is their final destination. Containing every detail of team collaboration, it can be used as a road sign that will not let anyone get off track.
For managers, a team chart is a treasure. This document lets them perform all the 4 management functions – planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
There is no need to spend long hours developing separate plans for each of these functions right in the middle of the collaborative process – it’s overwhelming and not productive. You specify everything one time in the beginning, and then the chart works for you and your team.
There is no universal team charter to be used by everyone. Charters can vary based on the projects. However, we can still outline the basic elements of a team charter that make it really effective:
To create a team charter, you can use a ready-made team charter template that would cover all the basics but can still be expanded, giving you a chance to attach more fields.
First of all, we should say that the very name “team charter” indicates that the entire team is supposed to participate in its development – both to provide important insights and to reach a buy-in.
Let’s discuss how to make a team charter based on the fields we mentioned in the section above.
Before outlining any details, you should start with the fundamentals – deciding who is going to be involved. At this point, you have to identify all the stakeholders, as well as the team leader. Then, you should analyze what other groups your team will interact with and how exactly this interaction will happen. This will help people see how they fit in the bigger context.
Once you’ve chosen the people to work as a team, it’s time to explain why this team is being built. This will direct the efforts and give team members some motivation. For a good team charter, you should:
By clearly stating in a team charter who does what, you kill two birds with one stone: first, every person will understand what is expected from them, and what is not; and second, this will eliminate a chance of confusion when people take on more (or less) work than they have to, which might lead to resentment.
Besides, since everybody will get a copy of the team charter, the roles and responsibilities field will let them see what other people are in charge of – so in case they need information, updates, or a subject-matter opinion, they will know whom to talk to. This, in particular, will also be of great help to new team members.
This field of team charters concerns the budget and any other resources, like materials or technology, the team needs to reach the goals. Here you need to create a budget plan, allocate resources, and also think of possible ways of how to reduce costs.
This requires you to consider the following:
To estimate your budget, you can use different methods:
➡️ Related: How to Create a Project Budget Without Opening Excel
A workflow is a sequence of all the steps you need to take to reach your goals, from the beginning till the end. To determine a workflow, you should identify a project’s start and endpoint, list the steps required to take, decide if these steps need to take place in a specific order (and if yes, identify the order,) and outline a schedule and milestones that would create a sense of urgency.
Workflows provide clarity and reduce inefficiency, which is especially helpful if team members are involved in more than one project.
The performance of team members must be conducted throughout the project (or during the time a group works together as a team.) The assessment criteria needs to be presented in the beginning, so that people understand what outcomes they’re expected to provide, who will be assessing them, and how exactly this process will occur.
As a part of the assessment, a team leader could also include peer-to-peer feedback – to ensure that everyone can voice their opinion and provide a perspective. This unofficial feedback might be subjective, yet it will help people cooperate and make informed decisions.
The effectiveness of communication in a team is, without any exaggeration, the key to teamwork success. For this reason, it’s important to establish clear rules for everybody to follow.
While working on these rules, make sure to consider such communication aspects as:
We should point out that communication in a team exists in two closely interconnected dimensions. The first one is work-related communication, and the second one is personal interactions. If team members treat each other respectfully, they would develop a healthy relationship, which would improve the quality of their work. That’s why a team should develop a code of conduct that would ensure respectful communication.
In any team, conflicts are inevitable. Having different experiences and backgrounds, people will disagree with each other, as their ideas and views will not always coincide.
However, conflicts do not have to be destructive. In fact, they can be a catalyst for team development and a great way of finding the best solution possible. But for a conflict to be productive, it’s necessary to follow specific rules, like:
Once the team discussed every field in the team chart and agreed with it, each team member can sign the document, proving they have read it and are ready to follow the prescriptions.
Team charters are incredibly helpful tools for project planning that contribute to team cohesion and success. By creating this document, you make sure everyone is on the same page, and your team runs like clockwork.
It sets the team direction, reduces the chance of error, improves communication, and leads everyone to a single goal, helping people overcome obstacles with ease.
