readmes, super powers, and team charters
Elizabeth Foughty
Last week we went on vacation with another family, and I was reminded of how important setting team norms are for successful outcomes. We all know joint family vacations require just as much planning and execution work as any successful work project! We didn’t do this for this vacation, but I kind of wish we had. It would have been both clarifying and fun to establish some norms upfront, and also to include the bigger kids in the discussion. (Don’t worry, we still had a blast because we know this family super well already.)
That said, I wanted to share some of my favorite practical practices for setting up successful teams for short or longer duration projects, learned over time from colleagues, my intensely team-focused grad school, and trial and error.
A readme about how to work with me. This includes preferred contact method (e.g., slack, email, phone), timezone, typical hours, typical response times, and general expectations for engagement. My only tip here is to pick the categories most relevant for your team and not to make them too long (they won’t be read!). A sales team will likely have a different readme than an engineering team.
Superpower/Kryptonite (courtesy of Keely Roth). I love this concept for understanding what folks feel they are best at and what really sets them off. A fun way to share this is to make it an icebreaker (e.g., everyone guesses everyone else’s Superpower/Kryptonite). That also adds an interesting element of hearing if everyone else agrees with your own assessed super power!
Team charters with goals, vision, working norms, and values. I found this invaluable for establishing a baseline for how a team should function. The goals do not necessarily need to be the company goals (though they should align). Working norms might be things like “we show up on time to meetings” or “we respond within 1 business day to colleagues” and values might be “we support bringing your full self to work” or “we believe in having fun as a team”. Critically, this can’t be dictated. It has to be created by and for the team, with the manager as a guide/participant. Dictating team norms and values is a good way to kill the buzz. You can demonstrate them. You can lead by example. You can propose. But ultimately, you have to treat folks like the responsible teammates they are and let them participate in joint creation.
A final thought on this is that the exercise itself is valuable. Creating the Team Charter is useful and a great team bonding experience. Writing your own readme will help you know yourself better. Thinking about your superpower and kryptonite will help you identify areas to shine in and pitfalls to avoid. You can revisit every 6 months or so to check in and adjust as needed.
Elizabeth Foughty 