Guide for Creating Teams

Guide for Creating Teams:

Ground Rules

Note: In addition to team practices, and defined team roles, a successful team should also consider ground rules and take steps to ensure that ground rules are adhered to (the facilitator and team leader have a key role in ensuring practices as well as ground rules are followed, but all team members share this responsibility).

Overview

Definition
Guidelines or standards which govern behavior and help establish constructive norms.

Purpose
To state explicitly how we will communicate and interact in this team. To agree up front on ways we can operate that will help the team be more effective.

Suggested Areas for Setting Ground Rules

In the early stages of team formation each team should spend some time discussing ground rules. Agreed-upon ground rules should be documented and referred to, revisited, and/or revised as necessary.

Suggested areas to look at:

• How people need to communicate
• How to show respect to others
• How decisions will be made
• How conflict will be resolved