Virtual teams are the way of the future: but they take advantage of many of the characteristics of the successful business units of yesterday and today. Discuss: Edit, delete, or live with an instruction. Make sure you have the buy-in of the entire team before proceeding. 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`d like to announce that I`ve teamed up with another Learning 3.0 facilitator. And we will offer distance learning in London on July 25. So, if you`re curious about what it is, keep an eye out for the Superpower Collaboration newsletter. Of course, the questions vary depending on the team and as soon as you start the discussion, other questions will arise.
Just add them to the bottom of the list to review them later in the same meeting. If you are already using a particular project management software, some of these questions are already answered by the specifics of the software. But this would also be the time to talk about best practices and best ways to use this software. Do not end the meeting until all team members have answered each of the questions on the list. Because the answers become the norms of the group. Author: Lee S. Johnsen, CPT, CPLP, SPHR, is an international leader in virtual team management, leadership development and performance improvement. He is an expert in helping global teams and their leaders overcome the challenges and opportunities of working in a virtual world. He has spoken internationally about this and other topics that inspire the public to broaden their thinking and leadership practices.
One of the most important actions a virtual team can take is to create a documented Team Operating Agreement (TOA). The TOA serves as guidelines and ground rules that help virtual team members work together optimally. Creating a TOA clarifies expectations and reduces conflict when team members commit to getting along and holding each other accountable. Here are some components of a typical toA. In addition, it is recommended that you consider your team`s mission, vision, and goals. Once everyone has committed to working on it, you need to make sure that everyone still has easy access to the deal. And all I did was put four sticky notes on the board, one as information, one as communication, and one as collaboration. And then I also put an extra post-it just for the tools because I was curious about what tools people thought were important for what they were using, or what had just happened. 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 entered into 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 the ICC workflow. I have certainly talked about it in the past. And it means dividing your work 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 get your work done, and how you know what everyone else is doing. Instead of starting the ICC workflow from scratch, I decided it would be easier to go through the Google document point by point of what we decided last time and take a look at everything we wrote 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.
But even that showed some differences in how we use the tools, and it gave us the opportunity to clarify some assumptions, which was very interesting. So, for example, Chad, our illustrator, he [inaudible – 05:02] updates the status, and other people are very careful and really look at it every day. This kind of thing is good to know, because if you want to tell Chad something important, you have to mark it specifically in an update, and I had done that, or use another tool where he looks closer. One of the hypotheses we encountered came from [inaudible – 05:24], which assumed that when she saw that someone`s Slack status was available, she assumed that they were online and available to answer questions. A Team Operating Agreement (TOA) guides the team`s actions and interactions. Each team consists of a specific combination of personality types. And with these unique personality types come different ways of processing and transmitting information. In order to act as a team, it is important that everyone communicates. Just as an orchestra gets in the mood before a performance or an athlete warms up before a training session, the agreement of a virtual team helps everyone on the same page. It goes without saying that the whole team needs to work together on the teamwork agreement – this means that the first step is to convene a meeting.
It works best if it is a single meeting devoted solely to this agreement. So this is not the kind of activity you just want to put on the agenda of a normal weekly meeting with all hands. You also don`t want to try to add a few quick items to the agenda of this meeting. .
