Why should we bother with a chartering experience? The chartering process accelerates the path to excellence for any team.
Nine women can’t make a baby in a month. The chartering process can’t be rushed. Each team will need to take its own time to learn, discover and agree on the elements of chartering for their own specific situation.
In a nutshell, the sections below will give you a taste for the questions that the team will learn to answer during the sequence of workshops that make up the chartering experience. When you’ve covered all these topics, you’re done. You’ll be in a much better position to start improving both your work products and your work process.
Chartering for Purpose
Why are we setting out to work together as a team? Starting with why is excellent.
Vision
What’s our specific purpose? Why are we doing our work? Who are we serving and why?
This is usually articulated as a single statement that’s co-created by the team members. The team’s facilitator may use a 1-2-4-all technique to arrive at the vision statement.
Mission
What are we setting out to do?
This is usually a list of three to six key objectives that the team is setting out to achieve in the next three to six months. While this list may start with a draft put forward by leaders or managers, it’s up to the team to reframe, slice and re-order the mission elements to best achieve the vision.
Mission tests
How will we know we’re achieving success for each of our mission elements?
This is usually a list between one and no more than six or so specific measures or criteria for each of the mission elements. It pays to be gentle on ourselves as a team, and not overdo our mission tests. Striving for simplicity pays large dividends.
Chartering for Alignment
How will we work together?
Core team
Who’s in the core team? Who will actually spend most of their working time with us in this team?
Values and Principles
What values and principles do we really share? While the team may draw inspiration from ready-made sources, like the Disciplined Agile Manifesto, or the Disciplined Agile Principles, be sure to confirm your own preferences that are most meaningful to you.
The team’s facilitator will guide this process of discovery and harmonisation.
Market of Skills
How should we rely on one another? Who do we go to for help with any specific thing to do? What are we curious about and want to learn more of?
The Market of Skills exercise provides a solid foundation for teamwork and pair work.
River of Life
What’s our life history so far? How did we develop our skills? What else happened in our life that gives us our unique insights?
The River of Life enriches the insights we gain in the Market of Skills.
Working Agreements
How will we structure our way of work? Will we use a rhythm of activity? How will we visualise the flow of our work? How would we prefer to navigate conflict? What process policies will we establish and enforce?
Chartering for Context
Where does our team fit in the greater scheme of things, in both space and time?
Boundaries
What are the boundaries of our team? What are we responsible for, exactly? What are the responsibilities of the various teams around us?
Community Interactions
What specific interactions are we expected to have with other teams, organisations or functions? What reports or other communications must we prepare, and on what schedule? What types of communications and what collaboration tools will we use?
Committed People and Assets
In addition to our core team, what other people or assets do we have access to? If we need something, who do we turn to for help?
Prospective Analysis
What contingencies should we plan for? What dependencies, issues, risks, assumptions and constraints should the team be aware of?
To learn more about chartering
Read Ainsley Nies and Diana Larsen’s excellent Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams, or talk to us – team@novavi.co.