Team Charters

For workplace and academic teams, good beginnings are critical. A good beginning involves setting some norms, establishing initial roles, and planning for how the team will communicate and handle predictable situations such as conflict, disagreement, and perceived lack of productivity. Over the years and in contexts both academic and organizational, I’ve used team charters to structure a good beginning. Here are a couple that I’ve customized over the years. These are Word documents; feel free to customize them for your situation:

• Academic Team Charter
• Organizational Team Charter

These work for virtual teams, also, with slight modifications to emphasize multiple methods/tools for communication and collaboration. Let me know if you find these useful or if you have suggestions for improvements that others might be interested in.