Framing & kick-off

Team charter / working agreements

Team mission, values, ground rules, rituals, definition of "done".

When. A new or reshuffled team needs to make its rules explicit before arguing about them.

Duration
2 h
Participants
Whole team
Output
Working agreements on the wall
Stage
Idea · Pre-PMF · Post-PMF · Scale-up · Mature
MissionValuesRulesRitualsDefinitio…
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Filled example

MissionEvery Fieldnotecompany connected toits invoicing toolin month 1Zero retypingbetween the fieldand the invoiceValuesBoring and reliablebeats cleverSync errors areshown to Sophie,never hiddenWe ship behind aflag or we do notshipRulesNo meetings before10am, technicianscall support earlyOne integration at atime, PennylanefirstPull requestsreviewed within 4working hoursDecisions written inthe squad channel,not in DMsRitualsMonday 30-minuteplanning withNadia's top 3blocked dealsWednesday demo toJulien and onedesign partnerFriday 20-minuteretro, Start / Stop/ ContinueDefinition of DoneTested against areal Pennylanesandbox accountError statesreviewed with JulienMonth-1 connectionmetric wired forPriya

Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill all 61 boards, so the examples tell one consistent story.

Scale-up Fieldnote, the new Integrations squad (4 engineers, Karim as PM) writes its working agreements on day one.

What the team took away

The 10am rule came from Tom: the March photo incident was debugged at 8am while support drowned in calls.

How to run it

Preparation

Agenda

  1. 15 min
    Past teams
    Everyone shares their two stickies. No debate, just listening. Cluster the 'drove me crazy' ones: those become the rules.
  2. 20 min
    Mission
    Write 'we exist to ... for ... so that ...' in pairs. Two rounds of merging. If it could describe another team in the company, it is not done.
  3. 20 min
    Values into behaviors
    For each proposed value, ask 'what would we see someone do?'. Keep only values that produce an observable behavior. Three to four maximum.
  4. 30 min
    Working rules
    Response time on messages, meeting-free blocks, how decisions get made when the PM is out, how to say 'I am stuck'. One rule per sticky, thumbs up or down from everyone.
  5. 25 min
    Rituals and Definition of Done
    Confirm or kill each ritual with its purpose and owner. Then write the DoD as a checklist a new joiner could apply alone.
  6. 10 min
    Sign and schedule
    Everyone puts their initials on the board. Book a 30-minute review in six weeks, on the spot.

Pitfalls

Afterwards

The charter is pinned in the team channel and read to every new joiner in their first week. Its rituals get scheduled the same day; the Team Health Monitor six weeks later checks whether they hold.

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