Their first working arrangement was an agreement on the code of conduct on how they would build trust. The other was a process agreement to help them become a self-managed team. What should the team keep doing, start doing and, just as importantly, stop doing? Four discussion prompts that can help get a team agreement in the field are: Here are some questions to start your discussion about communication and creating a team agreement: It helps to know how to reach someone in the event of a real emergency. It is best to agree in advance on a specific channel or method to be used only in an emergency. This can help people quickly understand that a situation is really urgent. Otherwise, a team, especially one with business-critical support or features, such as site maintenance, may develop alert exhaustion, making it less likely that people will respond to immail notifications or other overused means for non-urgent requests. When the team saw this graph, they knew it described their behavior. They realized and accepted that they had to change as a team. There are two general approaches to creating team agreements. Time zone protocols are described in the team agreement and illustrate how people communicate when they are not in the same time zone and therefore may not have overlapping availability periods for synchronous communications such as video calls. Welcome to the Collaboration Superpowers podcast. My name is Lisette and I interview people and companies that do great things remotely. Welcome to another episode, all of them.
Today we are going to talk about team agreements. But first, I want to announce that I`ve teamed up with another Learning 3.0 moderator. And we will offer a remote work study in London on July 25. So, if you`re curious about what it is, keep an eye out for the Superpower Collaboration newsletter. So team agreements. In many of the interviews I conduct with remote teams, I hear that creating a basic set of guidelines helps avoid misunderstandings. Through my workshops, I learn that very few companies have team agreements. So I wanted to share a little bit about the process and experience of the Happy Melly team, which is completely distant, hoping that they highlight how to create a team agreement and what the process might look like for you.
Phil Montaro of the Anywhere office introduced me to a policy he had created for team agreements, and he called it ICC Workflow. I have certainly talked about it in the past. And it represents the division of your labor into three categories: information, communication, and collaboration. Specifically, you`d ask the team what kind of information you need for the projects you`re working on, what kind of communication you use to do your job, and how do you know what everyone else is doing. How do we report team or company emergencies? How can we be contacted in case of emergency? Is there anyone on call? Be accessible. The SLA should be easy to find for all team members. ImportantIf you stick to base hours and some team members are outside of those hours, it is imperative that your minutes are aware of the impact in terms of early or late hours for meetings and make sure everyone involved agrees. It`s also important to review this protocol regularly enough to make sure it doesn`t weigh on people who initially enthusiastically accepted it but struggle to maintain it.
Various communication tools can help set strong communication standards for hybrid teams. What are team members` expectations of each other? In general, you have two general options here: set up «base hour» windows where things like video calls or standing meetings can occur, or design collaboration plans that transfer more collaborative communication to asynchronous mechanisms and don`t rely on the overlaps required for regular synchronous communication. Tools like World Clock Meeting Planner help you integrate all the locations of your distributed team to see where you overlap (green spaces in all locations). Ideally, team agreements codify the way the team works as accurately as possible. For example, if the team chooses to share status updates via email, not only will they be written down and the details and frequency of updates clearly documented, but a template for the email will also be included in the agreement to make it easier for everyone to use the process. The fascinating story of the Chevron team is a great example of how working conditions help teams. But it`s certainly not the only one. 5. Lead by example The leader must model the desired behavior in the social contract. If you expect to see some behavior in the team, make sure you stick to it first. And if you see someone deviating from the agreements, gently remind them of the agreement instead of blaming or shaming them. After studying the survey results, I interviewed the nine teammates individually.
During the interviews, I learned several dysfunctions of teamwork. A number of teammates commented on the tendency of several other teammates to «explode» when frustrated. I called the behavior: I can`t wait to see what you and your team achieve. To turn groups of employees into large teams, an important first step is to form a social contract – an explicit agreement that sets out the basic rules for team members` behavior. A contract can cover areas. B such as how members work together, make decisions, communicate, exchange information and support each other. Social contracts set clear standards for how members interact and should interact with each other. Avoid misunderstandings and describe acceptable behaviors for how your team wants to work together. Next, we take a detailed look at the protocols for team agreements, which are especially important for remote teams.
A team agreement is a set of values, principles, or behaviors that a team uses to improve communication and hold each other accountable. This contract may cover areas. B such as how members work together, make decisions, communicate, share information and support each other. Social contracts set clear standards for how members interact and should interact with each other. One way to do this is to set up a meeting and set up a sticker note board online. First title, «Information», «Communication» and «Cooperation». Take about 15 minutes to think about questions in each category. Instead of starting the ICC workflow from scratch, I decided it would be easier to go through the Google document point by point, which we decided last time, and take a look at everything we`ve written and decide on its relevance. And I admit that it was a bit complicated to just go through the list. So I wonder if there`s a way to make this more fun. .