For remote teams, you first create a collaboration document, such as . B a Trello board or Confluence page. You can use a deployed template if you want or create your own. How does the team want to communicate when there are changes in projects? Only via Slack? Before the working agreement session, collect the issues the team is currently facing, either from a table of obstacles (see example), a retrospective, or simply known challenges. Bring them and share them during the session to inform the working modalities. However, meetings can be painful for everyone, especially if they are poorly planned. They feel like a waste of time that could have been invested elsewhere. What`s particularly frustrating is that these are usually spontaneous meetings that disrupt everyone`s day and potentially affect team members` ability to close their tickets within a certain amount of time. Third, I will ask the team to write down ideas on how we hold each other accountable and how we can approach each other when a team member has let you down. At a count of three, each team member raises their fist and shows a number from 0 (bad) to 5 (large). Ask anyone who shows a 0 to 3 what can be improved to bring it to a 4 or 5. Use this feedback for future meetings/reviews or discussions on working arrangements. Creating an agile teamwork agreement should be a collaborative process.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways to do this, and I`m just going to describe a path that has worked well for our teams. When thinking about facilitating this process, ask yourself, “What is your team most comfortable with when it comes to collaboration?” At Crema, it is now a standard that we use a virtual whiteboard called Miro (even if no one joins remotely). Using a product like Miro can be useful because of the variety of features such as voting, reply, timer, etc. However, you can use a collaborative document like Dropbox Paper, regular sticky notes, or even a physical whiteboard to anchor discussions. It`s really up to you. Finally, I will talk about logistics. I prefer to dig this up for the end, as it forces the team to make decisions about logistics quickly and with less time. Some teams can be too detailed with logistics, so I like to spend less time there. As a rule, logistical decisions can be easily changed. There is no official or correct way to create work arrangements, so Steve uses the approach I share in my workshops. As usual for a Scrum Master, good preparation pays off.

Consider asking the team in advance on categories/areas for a deal. Psychological safety means that team members feel confident by expressing concerns or problems with the team and taking risks, regardless of their role or rank. The Scrum Master is the guardian of the work arrangements, but the whole team has a responsibility to wonder when someone breaks the agreement. Since the working arrangements have been agreed by the team, this eliminates the perception of personal attacks and clashes. In the interest of transparency and continuous improvement, team members should review the work arrangements from time to time and ask, “Do you want to update them?” Let`s start with the definition: working modalities are standards or guidelines created by a team to improve their interactions in order to achieve better performance and create a common language. In practice, these agreements define the expectations of the group, establish opportunities for collaboration and create the kind of atmosphere necessary for empathetic and psychologically safe work. Go through and vote to maintain or modify existing agreements. Next, ask team members to reflect, suggest, and vote on adding additional agreements. Discuss each item added by team members and start grouping items that seem to relate to each other. Do this as part of the open discussion on each topic to gather enough context to see if it can be grouped with something similar or if it`s something else.

Be sure to encourage the participation of all team members by asking questions like “X, what do you think?”, etc. There`s nothing more frustrating, especially for a project manager, than separating team members in an important meeting. While you`re thrilled to have brought everyone in, you`ll face a new battle to grab the attention of attendees who stick to their devices or do work that has nothing to do with the goals of the meeting. A work agreement is a short set of guidelines created by the team for the team that determine what the team`s expectations are for each other. A well-written agreement should help establish and strengthen a clear and shared understanding among all team members of what they recognize as good behavior and communication. It is usually called a single “work arrangement”, but in reality it consists of many individual agreements for each topic or theme. Each rule for each area that you need to define with the agreement is placed on a sheet of paper and displayed in the shared workspace. If the team is working remotely, it must be digitally accessible to all team members.

Reminding each other of the solutions you have agreed on will become natural, and many problems and frictions will begin to disappear. Teamwork agreements are a simple practice that you can use to do wonders to build new teams as well as reform existing ones. These agreements are a consolidation of policies that define how groups want to work together and what they ideally want both in the work environment and from each other to foster a safe and open environment for productivity. Next, ask participants to make a deal that will lead to successful team collaboration, using their considerations as a guide. .