Team

Assignment: The Team Charter

Collaboration and teamwork are an inescapable aspect of work life. You depend on co-workers and colleagues to meet their deadlines, contribute their fair share to projects, and to behave ethically and supportively. Of course, you have a role as a collaborator or team member as well. Your role is defined, in part, by your particular skill set, professional experience, and expertise. Beyond this, the dynamics of the organization where you work also determines, to a certain extent, how you can contribute as a collaborator or team member in the workplace.

Unfortunately, many teams within organizations lack clear direction and established boundaries. When communication breaks down between members; when decisions need to be made quickly; when infighting or turf wars threaten a project, how can team members get back on track? One tool in both preventing and resolving team conflicts is a Team Charter. A Team Charter helps “team members recognize their complementary skills, their common purpose, common goals, and mutual accountability” (Byrd & Luthy, 2010, p. 14). Imagine for a moment that you were given the opportunity to design a Team Charter for the workplace. What roles would others need to have for the team to function effectively? What processes would you put in place to resolve conflict and promote effective collaboration? What would be your role as a collaborator on such a team?

For this assignment, imagine that you are applying for a position in the hypothetical United States-based company Walden Consulting Inc., (WCI). WCI’s mission is to improve teamwork at organizations worldwide. To accomplish this, WCI is interested in constructing a model team to “shop” to other organizations that want to increase their teamwork skills. This model team must be an exemplar of positive teamwork, successful collaboration, and be able to work with teams of all sizes, revenue, and experience levels. WCI is asking all interested persons to create a sample Team Charter as evidence of his or her ability to think through how a model team should effectively operate.

Of course, as a Walden student you have always been passionate about teamwork and teambuilding, and think that your experience, collaborative skills, and expertise on how teams operate would be a great asset for WCI’s model team. You have decided to apply for the position and need to develop a team charter.

To prepare for the assignment, first research the library and the internet for reputable sources on the content and format of team charters.

Prior to beginning work on your team charter, also review the Week 5 Assignment Rubric for criteria your instructor will use to assess the quality of your work.

Hint: There are many different ways to format team charters. The format of your team charter should be your original work to incorporate your unique vision of how a team should operate and interact. Your team charter should synthesize ideas from a variety of reputable sources you have found through your research. Simply copying a format you found online is not appropriate for this assignment.    

At a minimum, incorporate the following in your team charter for the assignment:

· the important skills and behaviors an effective team needs to demonstrate effective collaboration and teamwork (remember that behaviors should be specific and describe actions that are readily observable);

· guidelines that team members should follow to ensure that each team member demonstrates these important behaviors and skills and what the responsibility of each team member is to the team and to members of the team

· guidelines for how team members and the team leader will manage changes to the team composition or changes to the team’s goals (keeping in mind today’s environment of agile teams where change is inevitable).

· the organizational norms and characteristics that enable effective collaboration and teamwork;

· the guidelines, steps, and practices you think are needed to ensure that a team can operate effectively;

· strategies for managing disagreements at the point of conflict and managing conflict upon escalation;

· contingency plans teams should make to mitigate potential risks to the team’s ability to function and achieve its goals (Hint: reflect on the challenges you have seen teams encounter that risk the team’s success or ability to function. Your contingency plan should address these potential challenges.)

For this assignment, create a team charter that includes specific guidance for the operation of and interactions for the model team at WCI. Use references from the resources provided in the course to date, resources from the Walden Library, and—if applicable—examples from personal experience to support the content of the Team Charter.