Creating a Team Charter for Clarity

Most teams have unspoken rules. The best teams write them down. Many teams operate under vague assumptions about how they should work together. They assume everyone shares the same expectations. But assumptions breed confusion. And confusion breeds conflict. The solution is clarity. A Team Charter is a written agreement on why we exist as a team, what we value most, and how we'll live out those values through daily actions. In other words, our purpose, our values, and our norms. This was the focus of our sixth and final session of the Optimizing High-Performance Teams program with Andrea Albright and the Walmart International Growth Team. We've covered psychological safety, empathy, feedback, difficult conversations, and collective personality. Session 6 brought it all together. First, we tackled Purpose. We all know Walmart's purpose. Walmart exists to help people save money and live better. The question for the growth team was: What is your specific contribution to that purpose? “We exist to ______ so Walmart can help people save money and live better.” Next came Values, the qualities necessary to live out our purpose. All teams at Walmart share the same core RISE values (Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence). But each team also has its own micro-culture defined by values that are unique to them. So we spent time discussing and identifying the additional values beyond RISE that are at our core and therefore warrant a spot in our charter. Then we integrated the individual team members. Teammates shared their personal "User Manuals" from the previous session. Everyone shared their personality scores, their strengths, weaknesses, stress response, tips for communicating and collaborating with them, and specific growth challenges they’re working on. The goal was to surface patterns and raw material for the final piece of the Team Charter. That final piece was Team Norms. Values are what we believe. Norms are what we do to bring those values to life through daily action. The team built specific expectations around psychological safety, empathy, relationship-building, delivering (and receiving) constructive feedback, difficult conversations, managing conflict, communicating, collaborating, holding one another accountable, making decisions, and celebrating wins. The big takeaway from this session is that a Team Charter is one of the best psychological safety tools we have. Clarity creates safety. When expectations are written down and agreed upon, difficult conversations become easier. You're not attacking a person. You're pointing to a document that we all co-created. Doug McMillon once said, "I believe if we continue to be inspired by our purpose and authentically live our values, we will make a positive difference in the world for a long time to come." This is exactly what building a Team Charter is about. #TeamCharter #Leadership #HighPerformanceTeams #PsychologicalSafety #Purpose #Values #Norms

Is Your Agile Team Set Up for Success? Many Agile teams struggle not because they lack skills or effort, but because they lack clarity. Without a shared understanding of why they exist, how they work,and what success looks like, teams can quickly fall into dysfunction. This is where an Agile Team Charter becomes a game-changer. What is an Agile Team Charter? Think of it as your team’s blueprint for success a guiding document that defines purpose, responsibilities,  collaboration norms, and key success measures. It aligns the entire team, making decision-making faster, reducing conflicts, and ensuring everyone is rowing in the same direction. Why Every Agile Team Needs a Charter Clarity of Purpose   ↳ Why does this team exist? What value do we bring? Stronger Collaboration   ↳ Clear working agreements foster a healthy, productive environment. Measurable Success   ↳  How do we know we’re making progress?   ↳ Without defined success measures, teams risk working hard without working smart. Improved Adaptability   ↳  A strong foundation allows teams to adjust without losing focus. Key Elements of a Powerful Agile Team Charter 📌 1. Purpose ↳ What contribution does the team make? ↳ How do we create impact? 📌 2. Team Type & Responsibilities ↳ What areas of the solution are we responsible for? ↳ What’s our role within the broader organization? 📌 3. Working Agreements ↳ How do we collaborate to create a positive, productive environment? ↳(This is crucial for fostering trust and ownership.) 📌 4. Success Measures ↳ What are our key indicators of success? ↳ How do we track progress? 📌 5. Definition of Done ↳ What criteria must be met for work to be accepted? ↳ (This prevents ambiguity and rework.) 📌 6. Key Interactions ↳ Which teams do we need to work closely with? 📌 7. Key Stakeholders ↳ Who are our key stakeholders, and how will we keep them informed? 📌 8. Team Members ↳ Who’s on the team? ↳ What are their roles and responsibilities? 📌 9. Distinctive Competencies ↳ What are we uniquely good at? ↳ What can we help others with? 📌 10. Team Events ↳ When and how do we meet, plan, and inspect progress? Agile Success Begins with Alignment A team without a charter is like a ship without a compass It may move, but without direction. Setting up an Agile Team Charter isn’t a one-time activity; it should evolve as the team grows, faces challenges, and learns. Does your team have a charter? If so, how has it helped? If not, what’s stopping you from creating one? Repost to help a friend learn scrum Book a 30-minute free Agile strategic session. Link on my bio.

In a time when so many companies can feel toxic, it's our responsibility in leadership to double down on team culture.  I'm not talking about escape rooms and icebreakers. 🗝️ 🗺️ I'm talking about a team charter.  It's not just an exercise. It's a collaborative agreement on your team's purpose, roles, goals, and how you want to treat each other.  Sit down together and ask your team to answer the following questions: 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲  - What is the point of what we do? - Why does it matter that we showed up today?  - What value do we provide? 𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀  - How do we know when we're winning - what metrics are we looking at? - Are our goals crystal clear? - Do we know how to achieve them? 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀  - What matters to us? - What do we want to be known for?  - How do we want to treat each other? 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗼𝗹𝘀  - What does each team member need to know? - How do we keep each other informed? - What are the expected turnaround times on emails and slack messages?   - Do certain things get communicated only in certain channels? - Are after-hours messages okay? 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗗𝗼 𝗪𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀? - What is decided as a group and what needs to be decided by leadership? - How do we work on strategy together? Having a sense of purpose, and a say in how you want to work together makes a HUGE difference in how people show up every day. Have you ever done this with your team?

I wrote a multi-page charter for my startup, Lume (YC W23), and it had unexpectedly positive impact for me and my company. The initial reason was to have a written document on our vision and mission for internal alignment. But, the process of writing this document forced our team to deeply question (and critique) our worldviews around what Lume solves. This chiseled out our vision, but more importantly, how we positioned ourselves in the world today. This brought about outsized impact: 📝 Messaging: everyone in the company now has a ground truth of vocabulary to use when sharing what we're building, which has made selling and hiring a smoother process. 🚗 Roadmapping: everyone in the team shared feedback on the document, and it evolved. It allowed us to question some of our roadmap items, and double down on others. It gave even more clarity for our 1 month, 6 month, and 1 year roadmap goals. 🌎 Team alignment: our vision, mission, and beyond are now etched in stone (a Notion doc). This serves as a living and ever-changing document, where team members constantly update it. This allows us to not only be aligned, but be confident that we all know exactly what we're investing our lives towards building. The document has brought clarity and confidence. It's one of those tasks that may get deprioritized in the context of customer requests and building, but reserving one evening to get started is invaluable. #startups #founder #tech

“The oncall keeps assigning random tickets to my team!”, a manager yelled, “My team is not the dedicated operational team they can dump all problems on. We have to deliver features for customers and evolve our system architecture for long term, just like other software engineering teams. This is not fair!” “Well, maybe it is time to clarify what your team’s charter is.” I answered, “define what you own, and most importantly what you do NOT own. And make sure people agree with you” A big part of a manager's job is helping their team create a solid team charter. It's kinda like a fence between neighbors - it sets the boundaries and responsibilities for the team, so everyone knows what's what. Much like a fence, a team charter has to be built on solid ground. It starts by clearly laying out the team's purpose, mission, and goals - the whole reason the team exists. This shared understanding gives the team a strong foundation to build on and guides their work. But the real value of a team charter is in setting boundaries. These rules and limits spell out what each team member is responsible for, and more importantly, what they are NOT responsible for. They create a framework for how the team communicates, works together, and resolves conflicts. Without these parameters, the team could end up drifting into uncharted territory, kinda like a property line with no fence. Now, a team charter isn't set in stone. Over time, things can change - maybe a new person joins the team, or the goals shift. When that happens, the charter needs to be revisited and the boundaries re-evaluated and reinforced. Just like a fence that starts to wobble or a foundation that settles, a team charter can get outdated and unclear. The team leaders have to stay on top of maintaining this important document, making sure the boundaries stay well-defined and respected by everyone. By having a solid team charter, organizations empower their teams to work with clarity, focus, and mutual understanding. It's like a well-built fence - a foundation for productive collaboration, minimizing conflicts and fostering trust and respect.