Team Charter
Who are we and how do we communicate?
Company - Lumedic
Problem - A team’s goals and norms can be easily confused. Teams become rudderless unless they take the time to agree on who they want to be and how they want to present themselves. How do you help define a team?
Liftoff!
Liftoff! by Chris Avore and Ross Unger is my go-to book on managing UX teams. One of the best sections is a chapter on running workshops to create a team charter. It walks you through the steps of the workshop and the shape of the charter produced at the end.
“...once the spokes understand they are all part of the same system together, they become a well-balanced wheel.”
Charter Workshop
As the team grew to six designers and two researchers at Lumedic, I wanted to keep us on track even as we were spread across 5 or 6 projects at a time. Drawing direct instruction from the Liftoff chapter about charters. I ran a series of remote workshops with the entire team. This team was especially thoughtful and considered. So it took two sessions to finish.
We set out in Miro to answer these questions as a group
Who is on the team?
Team Purpose
Team Commitments
What do we do?
What do we not do?
Areas of growth
Working with other teams/ Perceptions of our Team
Draft One
In our early drafts, we wanted to add guidelines (like "When in Doubt…") and a section on "What Makes Us Great." The result was a great starting point for our slide.
Looking back, I realize I could have encouraged the team to discuss how we see each other and our norms more. While there's some mention in the "How We Work Together" section, it could be clearer.
Our talented Brand/Visual designer created a one-page template that fit our brand's style but didn't fully capture the team's true vibe and desired tone.
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Final
We always held a weekly design exercise where we created group drawings using the “exquisite corpse” format. During one lunch, we reviewed our past drawings and selected our favorites. Together, we decorated the charter with these creations and finding novel uses for old drawings.
The charter truly reflected our team. We all signed it in our way. When we presented it at an organizational meeting, the leadership praised our work, as no one had asked us to do this.
Revisions
The key step was to regularly review and update the document as team members joined or left. When I hired a Design Ops manager, I assigned him the responsibility of managing the document and ensuring we consistently reviewed and revised it.
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