Activity 3
Team charter

Overview

The team charter is viewed as an ancillary document to the project charter. Its primary focus is the team – how it communicates, behaves and performs – together with detail around roles and responsibilities. It is designed to be completed in a team environment with core members.

In keeping with the project charter, its completion should be carried out at the earliest opportunity, as it will engender support and buy-in from cross-functional participants. It allows those representatives from the business to have a say in how team meetings should be run (e.g. meeting etiquette, conflict-resolution procedure) and away-day budgets.

The team charter may be populated once the project charter has been formally approved.

Elements

The intent of a team charter is to create an understanding of how the core team will function and its accompanying dynamics. It is viewed as providing extra granularity to the ‘team’ element of a project charter. A typical team charter will have the following structure:

Purpose – The reason for creating the cross-functional category team is restated from the project charter. This ensures consistency in terms of a common understanding and vision of what the final delivery may be.
Scope – The scope is also repeated from the project charter. This supports a continual awareness of the team’s boundaries. It may be that, at this stage, some members can give even more definition to this element.
Team – This is a list of core category team members, their roles and time allocations (i.e. full or part time). This section may also identify additional resources and stakeholder groups that could be useful to the cause.
Ground rules – In general these refer to expectations relating to behaviour and can include a list of what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable, values and conflict-resolution processes.
Member roles and responsibilities – Team member roles and responsibilities are described within this section. For example, the team member representing the marketing function may be allocated a communication role and his or her responsibilities will include promoting the category project across the organisation and originating e-mail editorial opportunities.
Team leader responsibilities – This role is seen as critical to the success of the project. Discussing the responsibilities of the leader within the team environment will facilitate clarity and endorsement of the position.
Sponsor responsibilities – Very often team sponsors are not present at group meetings, as they are lending support through their seniority rather than through active participation. In essence, they become a route for coalition building and escalation. However, their level of involvement will still need to be agreed and documented within the team charter.
Risks/constraints – This is an opportunity to identify risks to the success of the team and potential organisational and political barriers.

So what?

The team charter furnishes the project charter with another layer of detail relating to the operation of the category team. It serves as a source of information for members to illustrate the structure, workings and direction of the team, as well as educate others across the organisation. It is a ‘living’ document, and therefore should be constantly updated upon team movement.

It is important that a team charter is discussed in detail as a group during the early stages of a category project. Putting in the required time to develop the template can act as an important ‘binding agent’ for those participating, while reducing the risk of conflict and tension. Early consensus will establish parameters and guidelines for behaviour from the outset. This will also help a team mature quickly and pass through the inevitable ‘storming’ stage of early team development (Tuckman, 1965).

Category management application

Assists the category team development process
Provides guidelines for team behaviour
Clarifies and endorses the category team lead role
Defines in detail core team member roles and responsibilities
Facilitates commitment to the team

Limitations

As previously stated under Activity 1, there is some confusion surrounding the difference between the team charter and project charter. This often leads to one or the other of these being omitted from the category management process. Frequently, this tends to be the team version, as it is not deemed as necessary or important, and the content can be regarded as ‘fluffy’.

There also appears to be uncertainty as to who should lead the completion of the charter. Academics argue that this should be carried out by the appointed team sponsor; however, in practice, it is more likely to be the team leader who performs this function. Finally, the team charter, if completed properly, can be a time-consuming process, and many teams fail to put aside the requisite time or resource to achieve the end result.

Worse still, time restrictions can influence team leaders to preplan the input in advance, which of course goes against the spirit and intent of this document.

Template

The following template can be used to clarify category team roles and responsibilities:

Template 3: Team charter