🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

When was the last time you checked whether your distributed team working agreement was in line with current practices and expectations? 

💡 Concept

A distributed team agreement such as a communication charter is not something you can set and forget. Your team agreement needs to be as dynamic as your team: you should update it regularly to reflect any changes in your team’s makeup, tools, priorities, and needs. 

As team dynamics evolve and members gain insights from ongoing projects, these lessons should be incorporated into the team's operating principles. Regularly revisiting these agreements allows teams to reflect on past experiences, identify areas for improvement, and adjust their strategies accordingly. This iterative approach not only enhances the team's efficiency but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement. 

Updating a team agreement successfully requires collaboration and transparency. By engaging team members in the process of evolving agreements, leaders can ensure that all team members’ perspectives are considered, leading to greater buy-in and a shared commitment to achieving common objectives.

Regularly revisiting team agreements is a proactive measure that aligns a distributed team with current realities and enhances their ability to navigate change. 

🎬 Take Action

Here’s an example set of tasks to update your team working agreement. Copy and paste this list into your favorite project management tool to complete these tasks! 

• Review the team working agreement to make sure that its contents are still relevant and accurate.

• Suggest changes to the agreement according to its format for example, have team members add comments to a Word or Google document or add digital sticky notes to a Mural board).

• Share suggestions with the team and request feedback by [due date]. 

• Review and organize team feedback into 2 categories: 

  • Changes that are ready to incorporate 

  • Possible updates that  require further discussion

• Apply feedback that is ready to be incorporated. 

• Hold discussion (synchronous or asynchronous) to decide on feedback that requires further exploration. 

• Apply feedback as determined in discussion. 

• Share the new version of the agreement.  

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

Want to get started with a communication charter and other agreements? Access templates for 8 key distributed team documents in our Hybrid Team Success Toolkit. 

🎁 Learn with your team!

Refer our weekly microlessons to your team members to learn as a group! Just follow the instructions in the section below to get started.