Ship a Team Charter and Ways of Working
8 weeks · 3 milestones
Write, get buy-in, and operate by a team charter for 90+ days.
Milestone map
Milestone map
3 milestones
A team charter is a lightweight social contract that answers four questions the team will otherwise argue about implicitly: what are we here to do, how do we make decisions, what behaviour do we expect of each other, and how do we know if we're working well. The charter is only useful if the team owns it — which means it must be created with the team, not written by the manager and distributed. This milestone covers the facilitation process and the documented agreement.
Proof required
Submit: (1) the final team charter document (300 words minimum), covering at minimum: team purpose, decision-making process, norms for communication and conflict, and how the charter will be reviewed; (2) evidence that the charter was created through a team process — meeting notes, async comment threads, or a workshop summary showing that all team members had a meaningful opportunity to contribute; (3) a sign-off record showing all team members acknowledged the charter — this can be a message thread, a shared-doc acknowledgement, or a meeting attendance record with a follow-up message confirming agreement.
What gets checked
- Charter addresses all four dimensions: purpose, decision process, behavioural norms, and review cadence — a charter that only covers ground rules for meetings is not a team operating system
- Charter was created with genuine team input — a document the manager drafted and sent for 'feedback' with no substantive changes is not a co-created charter; the facilitation evidence must show specific contributions from team members that shaped the final document
- Sign-off is from actual team members, not implicit — 'nobody objected' is not the same as 'the team agreed'; a positive acknowledgement from each team member is required
Resources
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DORA — Team Norms Research
Go further: data on which team norms actually predict delivery performance.
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