Building Alignment:Team Working Agreements

1. Building Alignment:
Team working agreements
Ellen Grove
Access Agile 2021

2. Where all think alike,
no one thinks very
much.
Walter Lippman, The Stakes of Democracy 1915
@eegrove

3. Building Alignment: Working Agreements
By defining working agreements, your team members
forge a pact about how they will interact, behave and
produce

4. Think of your best (or worst!) team experience:
How did team members behave?
30s individual reflection
then 5m discussion in breakout rooms

5. "Fractals" by ohminus is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Working Agreements - why?:
•Align expectations
•Encourage behavioural awareness
•Create mutual accountability
•Clarity, transparency, respect

6. A good working agreement is…
• Short
• Actionable
• Expressed in plain language
• Focuses on behaviour over process
• Easy to find when needed

7. 6 Questions to Explore:
• Describe the best or worst team member ever.
• What’s the superpower you bring to this team?
• What kind of help do I want from my team to be high-performing?
• If I appear to you to be stressed or overwhelmed, I would like you to…
• What colour signifies conflict to you? Why?
• What should we do if we feel that one of us is letting the team down?

8. What kind of help do I want from my team to be high-
performing?
30s individual reflection
then 5m discussion in breakout rooms

9. …and more questions you might discuss
• What values will we hold together?
• What kind of space/culture do we want to create together?
• What would increase trust on our team?
• How will we know if our team agreement is working?
To narrow down specific behaviours:
• If we have this, what will we see and hear?
• If we fail to honour this, what would it look like?

10. Framework for building a working agreement
"IMG_5812_1600x1067" by Les_Stockton is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
• Set context: why create an agreement?
• Exploratory conversations – atmosphere, behaviours, conflict, decisions
• Team members propose specific behaviours
• Team select the behaviours to focus on now
• Confirm buy-in
• Check out*: “Which do you think will make the biggest difference? Which is your favourite?”
* from:
https://blog.crisp.se/2018/12/05/jimmyjanlen/bootstrapping-a-working-agreement-for-the-agile-team

11. And if you don’t have the time…
Choose behaviors that put
into practice the thinking
that effective group
members operate from
and that help create the
results that effective
groups create.
-Roger Schwarz
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-facilitators-consultants-shouldnt-ask-groups-develop-schwarz/?published=t
q State views and ask genuine questions.
q Share all relevant information.
q Use specific examples and agree on
what important words mean.
q Explain your reasoning and intent.
q Focus on interests, not positions.
q Test assumptions and inferences.
q Jointly design next steps.
q Discuss undiscussable issues.

12. Further reading:
https://masteringtheobvious.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/building-alignment-team-working-agreements/
https://blog.crisp.se/2018/12/05/jimmyjanlen/bootstrapping-a-working-agreement-for-the-agile-team
www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-facilitators-consultants-shouldnt-ask-groups-develop-schwarz/?published=t
https://pragprog.com/book/liftoff/liftoff-second-edition
Ellen Grove
@eegrove
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellengrove/