Team Charter
A team charter can help bring everyone together to create a shared understanding of who is doing what and how you will work together.
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A team charter can help bring everyone together to create a shared understanding of who is doing what and how you will work together.
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Was this helpful?
A team charter is a process and document thay help a team understand a team’s focus, direction, and establish some clear princinples of how you will all work together. It reduces confusion.
This process should be informal, fun and engaging. Get to know the folks you will be working with, and set up an open, honest relationship. You are trying to build empathy, set a shared vision and create a team that is enjoyable to work with, and has a clear purpose and defined roles and expectations.
Empathy and communication are integral parts of a strong team. With a team charter you'll outline the essential elements of your team's communication and define a set of concepts and skills that focus and guide your team.
The document's structure includes the following sections:
Short paragraph describing the context of the current challenge, who is involved, and the expected goals to achieve.
Links to relevant documents such as grant proposal briefs, work plans, etc. that will help newcomers understand the context.
Information such as program duration and expected start date.
Known reporting dates, presentations, and other events.
A list defining the existing roles and responsibilities within the team.
Responsible — The individual or individuals who will complete the task. Depending on the size and scale of the project, there may be multiple parties “Responsible” for the task. In many cases, this group or individual is also Accountable for the task.
Accountable — This individual ensures that the work is performed; they are the true owner of a task. This may be the project manager or the manager that the team member. The decision maker within the team. Only one person should be accountable for a task.
Consulted — Generally subject matter experts, these are people who provide advice before, during, and sometimes after a task is completed. They do not work on tasks directly. If the person Responsible or Accountable does not have enough expertise on the subject or if the task is complicated, another party will be Consulted.
Informed — These are the people who should be kept up-to-date about the project but are not expected to give immediate feedback. If feedback is expected then they are being Consulted. In many cases, being Informed may only happen when a task is completed.
When should this document be reviewed?
Whenever new team members join or existing members leave
The purpose of this matrix is to clarify who is doing what and how we are collaborating within this team together. Hopefully it brings clarity to our work and helps remind us of each other's involvement. It follows the pattern which defines 4 responsibilities for each task:
Notable examples can be found
Monthly and whenever there's a team