Composing a Team Charter
A team charter is a basic written agreement that explains how a team will work together and hold each other accountable. Team charters aren’t necessary for good collaboration, but they do help a great deal when the team begins experiencing communication problems or disagreements about the quality of work. With an explicit set of policies and procedures, it is a lot easier to address issues and recent them from affecting the project.
Rules of Engagement:
- This is a group assignment. Only one member of your team needs to submit the agenda/minutes as a PDF.
- Use a memo format for this document.
Include in the Charter:
- Team name
- Brief bios and contact information for each member
- For bios, identify the background and skills each member possesses. Each bio should only be a few sentences, and the information listed should be relevant to the work you will be doing for the project.
- Your team’s chosen collaboration method(s)—i.e., Google docs, face-2-face meetings on a regular schedule (e.g., every Tuesday), Trello, Slack, etc.
- Your team’s chosen Project Manager
- These 8 items:
- Overall, broad team goals for the project
- Measurable, specific team goals
- Personal goals
- Individual levels of commitment to the project
- Other information about team members that may affect the project
- Statement of how the team will resolve impasses or conflicts
- Statement of how the team will handle missed deadlines
- Statement of what constitutes unacceptable work and how the team will handle this
