Team Charters – Lead The Way Forward

Set The Course to Achieve Your Goals

Team charters have never been so important in planning to succeed, as in today’s unpredictable business environment. They offer a highly effective communication channel for leaders to set a course to reach their goals. A team charter answers all the key questions: Who, what, why, when, how? It establishes understanding and helps you plan your journey in more detail.

In this article, we look at what team charters are, and how they work. We also consider how they intersect with team plans, project charters and project plans.

Take Your First Step to Make Tomorrow Today

Firstly, a team charter provides a source for leaders to illustrate the team’s focus and direction to the team members. Secondly, it educates the leadership and other work groups about the team’s direction. You can use team charters to get new teams focused. Or, re-energise existing workgroups.

Let’s Get This In Writing

A charter is a formal document confirming an agreement, transfer of ownership or another contract of some kind. Hence, a team charter is a formal agreement between the team leader and the team. The team leader writes it and the team agree it. A team charter is sometimes referred to as a work charter. They mean the same thing.

Don’t be put off by the formality the term ‘team charter’ suggests. Your team charter is as formal, or informal, as you choose to make it.

But Really, Why Do I Need A Team Charter?

Here’s why. A staggering 80-90 per cent of new products fail and 50 to 70 per cent of IT projects flounder. And, the experts say, that’s because the team can’t see the larger purpose and mission behind their work. It doesn’t have to be like this! Drawing up a team charter will increase your team’s empowerment and commitment.

What Does A Team Charter Look Like?

A team charter is a written document. It can be as brief as 1 or 2 pages. Quite simply, it provides a short, descriptive overview to align and guide the team, and add clarity.

A team charter enables you to:

• Establish a clear picture of what team success looks like.
• Clarify roles and responsibilities.
• Define scope and milestones.
• Improve communications.
• Identify the resources needed.

A Team Charter is Different From A Team Plan, A Project Charter and a Project Plan

There are clear intersects between them. But their audience and their purpose differ. Here’s how:

A team charter is primarily an internal document. And it’s ongoing. As we said, the team leader writes it, and the team agree to it. The team charter establishes the setup and the game plan. And it gives a clear picture of working methods. From there, you can draw up a team plan, detailing how to achieve the team charter’s goals and objectives, play by play.

A project charter is in place primarily to inform the external audiences outside the team. And it’s for a finite duration. Again, the team leader writes it, and the team agrees to it. The critical difference is you then refer it to the people outside the team who need to sign off. Once they’re on board, you can draw up the project plan, which also sets things out play by play.

Now Let’s Look at the Difference in Focus Between Team Charters, Team Plans, Project Charters and Project Plans

#1: A Team Charter Covers

• The goals, assets and obstacles.
• The objectives, resources and constraints.
• The deliverables.
• The timetable
• The team’s roles and responsibilities.

#2: A Team Plan Sets Out

• The goals and objectives.
• Specific instructions for executing and managing the work.
• Milestones and deadlines.
• Responsibilities.
• The organisational structure.

Like the team charter, the team plan is primarily for the team leader and the team members. They update the external audiences for information.

#3: A Project Charter

A project charter is as much for the external audiences as the team and team leader. It “sells” the project to the leadership, external stakeholders or both. The charter covers:

• The project’s value to the business and the stakeholders.
• The project timeline and particular milestones.
• The project team’s organisational structure.
• The responsibilities of the key roles in the project.
• Who the individuals are in those roles.
• The resources required.
• The nature of the work needed to meet the objectives.
• The tasks and activities required to complete the project.

#4: A Project Plan

A project plan includes these elements:

• Project schedule: A timeline of how long specific parts of the project will take to complete, including individual tasks and milestones
• Scope document: What does the project entail and importantly, what does it exclude?
• Change management plan: How will you address changes that need to be made, including budgetary changes, scope changes and additional resources?
• Risk management plan: What are the potential risks, including external factors, that could affect the project?
• Communications management plan: How will you communicate internally and externally, during the project?
• Quality assurance plan: how will you monitor progress and evaluate the quality of the results?
• Training plan: what specific training do the people need?

The team charter will remain in place and evolve. By contrast, when the project is completed, the project charter no longer applies.

Now Let’s Look at How to Draw Up a Team Charter

3 Steps to Charter Heaven:

• #1: The team leader decides the purpose, goals, boundaries and team members.
• #2: The principal team members collaborate to determine how they will work together to accomplish the purpose and goals.
• #3: The full team – or as near as possible – determine the team norms and how often and the ways they prefer to communicate.

6 Points to Include in Your Team Charter:

• Team purpose: Why? A statement describing the overarching reason the team was created
• Goals/objectives: What? High level, measurable goals the team is formed to reach.
• Team members and roles: Who is on the team, and the part they each play.
• Sponsors and stakeholders: Who: The person, or people, the team are accountable to.
• Activities/responsibilities, in or out of scope: What? A clear description of what the team need to focus on, and anything that’s “out of bounds.”
• Decision making guidelines: How? The way the team will make decisions – consensus, majority, or the leader decides.

Consensus or majority decision making is more relevant with a professional or specialist team. The leadership style here is likely to be democratic. Even so, the leader retains control.

4 More Points to Include in a Team Charter:

• Duration: The period the team will exist for.
• Conflict resolution process: How you’ll resolve conflicts and disputes.
• Workload distribution: The way you will assign and distribute work among the team.
• Communication process: How you’ll communicate, and how frequently.

This Next Point is Essential:

• The ground rules/team norms: The guidelines describe the behavioural expectations of the team. This is clearly situation-specific. Norms for a given project could include dress code, travel expenses and everything else that needs defining at the outset.

And Last but not Least:

• The team name: If you’re already an existing business or division, you may not need a new name. But a new project will do, definitely.

Beware the Elephants in the Room…

Remember to bear these points in mind in drawing up a team charter:

• Appreciate the ‘leadership shadow’: It’s only natural to want to please the boss! So think about the team, when you draw up the team charter. Are they giving you the honest feedback you need?
• Address the company politics and culture. How does the charter fit?
• Accept and embrace team members’ diversity of thinking
• Be aware of cognitive biases. Not everyone thinks the same way.
• Work to resolve conflicts.
• Find ways to make progress, in the face of failure. This is especially important in motivating and rewarding innovation, successful or otherwise.

Keep the Team Focused

WeWork offers various tips for keeping people engaged in virtual meetings. These two tips are particularly helpful for keeping people focused and alert about agreeing on team charters. They apply in virtual meetings or face to face:

• Assign tasks: Give the team small tasks before the meeting begins. This can be as simple as taking minutes or making notes.
• Make time for the introverts: Some people are naturally less inclined to take part. Especially if meetings are crowded. So, make an effort to call on the quiet ones for their input. End meetings by going around the group to get everyone’s final thoughts.

The Psychology Of Getting Teams On Board

Humans have a strong need for connection and social bonding. Nowhere more so than at work! Bruce Tuchman created this model to describe the process in which colleagues come together in new teams:

• Forming: Individual team members start to come together, but go on working alone.
• Storming: Conflicts arise, but members begin to recognise themselves as a team.
• Norming: Team members set up rules to manage conflicts, and relationships form.
• Performing: The team is established and they all work together.

Recognising these stages will help track how quickly a new team are coming on board.

Try These Online Guides For Writing Team Charters:

• The team charter canvas is a business model canvas for teamwork, that forms a basis for your tram charter. It’s a free tool for leaders, facilitators and consultants to organise team alignment meetings.
• Smartsheet is a cloud-based platform that allows teams and organisations to plan, manage and report on projects.

We Need To Be ‘Agile’ In Our Thinking About All This

Businesses used the word ‘agile’ a lot, pivoting in the lockdowns. In the IT world, ‘agile’ practices involve teams discovering and reaching and improving solutions collaboratively. They do this through:

• Adaptive planning.
• Evolutionary development.
• Early delivery.
• Continual improvement.
• Flexible responses to changes in requirements, capacity and understanding of the problems to be solved.

In IT circles, an agile team is a small group of people assigned to the same project or effort. They have everything necessary to produce the results you want. There are plenty of videos and websites setting out how it works. But you need to remember, that this essentially comes down to effective business management.

If you’re looking to apply agile thinking like this in your business, that’s all good. But you may need to take a hybrid approach. You may not be able to work in a totally agile way in your business. For instance, people on the team may have other responsibilities besides your project. So they won’t be solely focused on it.

A Marketing Team Charter

Working in project teams, one of the biggest problems marketers face is settling expectations with internal customers. Friction between marketers and sales managers can be painful. But you can make it a lot smoother with a marketing charter.

• Share the vision: Get the team to see themselves as all working together, and their ideas being part of a common vision. Make them think too about the challenges and opportunities.
• Clarify roles and responsibilities: Make this a cross-functional team exercise. The goal is to produce more effective marketing programmes.
• Focus on what you can control: Encourage people to take personal responsibility for actions they can control. And to be specific when they identify obstacles. Ask them to say what they could do differently, and where they need help from others.
• It needn’t take long: Interactive sessions to agree charters deserve a day away from the office. Updating it might need only an hour or two.

And Finally: Suits You, Sir! Is The Medicine Working? Learn More

Team charters help create the working environment you want, to suit your personal leadership style:

• Authoritative leaders: Keep your vision front of mind with the team.
• Laissez-faire leaders: Get everything in place, then let your subordinates crack on.
• Democratic leaders: Give team members a sense of engagement, involvement and personal responsibility.
• Inspirational leaders: Boost the team’s self-esteem, sense of purpose, commitment and desire to succeed.
• Situational leaders: Help the team stay focused and flex with the circumstances.

Whatever your leadership style, you’re still the boss. So draw up your team charter your way. And then get the team to agree to it.

Is the Medicine Working?

Use your team charter to keep the team on track. In your reviews, ask these questions:

• Does our work reflect our stated purpose? Is anything distracting us?
• Are we meeting the team’s needs? Do the stakeholders feel we’re meeting their expectations? Are we coordinating with others who rely on our work?
• How effective are our work processes? What could we change?
• Are decisions being made effectively? Is there the right input?
• How well is our communication working? What methods are working particularly well?
• Are we living in the norms we created? Do they help us achieve our objectives?
• As we reach our intended goals, do the measured results show that? Is anything getting in the way of us succeeding?

You can always update your team charter if team members agree on necessary modifications or new additions.

There are various books to read on team charters. One is Chris Avore and Russ Unger’s “Liftoff! Practical Design Leadership To Elevate Your Team, Your Organization and You.’ Also, there are YouTube videos on how to create team charters. One’s just three minutes. And you can download various templates.

See your team charter being there to help build relationships and make everyone feel more recognised and fulfilled. The bottom line is that a team charter means you’re less likely to feel you have to micromanage. And that’s because people feel trusted to do their job. So they’re more likely to stay and develop and grow.