1. Method Name

Team Charter

2. Alternative Names

Team Agreement, Team Rules

3. Brief Description

A team charter is a document that a team creates at the beginning of its collaboration. It defines the team’s purpose, its goals, the roles and responsibilities of its members, communication guidelines, and methods for decision-making and conflict resolution. It is the team’s “constitution.”

4. Purpose / When to Use

It is used when forming a new team or at the start of a new project. Its goal is to align expectations, prevent misunderstandings and conflicts, and establish a clear framework for effective collaboration.

5. Procedure / How to Apply It

The team will meet for a joint workshop to discuss the following points:
1. Purpose and Mission: Why does this team exist? What is our main purpose?
2. Goals and Metrics: What do we want to achieve? How will we measure success?
3. Roles and Responsibilities: Who is on the team? What are our individual roles and responsibilities (you can use a RACI matrix)?
4. Ground Rules: How will we work together? (e.g., meeting rules, arrival times, communication methods—Slack vs. email).
5. Decision-Making: How will we make decisions? (by consensus, by vote, the leader decides).
6. Conflict Resolution: What will we do if we disagree?
7. Resources: What resources (budget, tools) do we have available?
8. Signatures: All team members should symbolically “sign” the charter to confirm their agreement.

6. A Real-World Example

At their kickoff meeting, the newly formed project team created a charter. They agreed that their goal was to “launch a new mobile app within 6 months with a 4.5+ star rating.” They decided that all important decisions would be made by consensus and that conflicts would be resolved immediately, face-to-face, rather than via email.

7. Benefits

- Clarity and alignment: Eliminates ambiguity and ensures that everyone understands the goals and rules.
- Conflict prevention: Proactively addresses potential sources of friction.
- Accelerates team formation: Helps the team move more quickly through the “forming” and “storming” phases.
- Strengthens accountability: When people participate in creating the rules, they are more likely to follow them.

8. Risks / Limits

- Perceived as bureaucracy: If it is done only as a formality, without any real discussion, it is a useless document.
- Too rigid: The charter should be a living document. The team should be able to amend it if conditions change
.- Non-compliance: If the rules in the charter are ignored in practice, the document loses its meaning.

9. Practical Tips

- Team collaboration is key: The charter must not be written by a manager and then handed to the team. It must emerge from a collective discussion.
- Keep it visible: Print it out and hang it on the wall in the team room, or pin it to your online communication channel.
- Refer back to it: When a conflict or confusion arises, go back to the charter and remind yourselves of what you agreed upon.