Why does an effective project team need a Charter?

The article will be useful for novice project managers, especially those who have freedom from dead processes and extreme conditions for the survival of a startup. You usually come to the understanding that the rules of interaction within a team must be demonstrated after going through interpersonal “inconveniences.” This article will allow you to enrich yourself with the best, in my opinion, world practices for preventing disagreements and an environmentally friendly procedure for resolving them.

Preface

Back in 2020 medium was not yet blocked, and I desperately volunteered at the Moscow branch of PMI to spark initiatives that promote the professional growth of members of the project management community. Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge: knocking through the curtain becomes more difficult, but the need to recommend something useful to those asking for something “useful to read” remains. I am republishing this material on habr with minor edits for the needs of those who drive change.

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Word “Charter” is widely used in understanding a set of Rules that regulate an entity that is important to its compiler. So the charter took root as a document defining order of life of a legal entity. It is familiar to many as what the Army rests on – see. Military regulations. Project managers The Charter is familiar as a documentwhich records the initial data and the meaning of the existence of a temporary event. And folklore, saturated with the wisdom of generations, says: “They don’t go to someone else’s monastery with their own rules” (we're talking about Monastic Charter). One can also recall the humorous Decree (Charter) of Peter I, which actually called for combating excessive reverence for officials mired in bureaucracy and bribery: “A subordinate, in front of his superiors, must look dashing and foolish, so as not to embarrass his superiors with his understanding.” This article will talk about Team Charter.

Rules for the Body of Knowledge

Team Charter is an element of Resource Management, which includes human resources, according to the classification of project management processes according to PMBoK 6th edition (p. 319, clause 9.1.3.2). The body of knowledge gives the document the destiny of a carrier of values, principles and other provisions accepted by team members; it may contain:
– core values: a description of those provisions that are decisive for the actions of team members and for understanding each other
– specified communications: how often, in what form, information should be transferred within the team
– collective solutions: clarifying the order and most effective way of making collective conclusions
– effective conflicts: settlement procedure and principles of responsibility for resolving periodically arising situations of misunderstanding and conflict of interests, etc.

As PMBoK defines, it is best for the team itself to participate in the development of the Charter and the Team Charter does not take the form of a final document – it adapts to the needs of the environment.

Often the function of the Team Charter is replaced by unspoken rules that arise spontaneously or intentionally in the Company. Project management frameworks can have a significant impact on them, for example Scrum. IN manual One of the most widespread Agile frameworks has already formulated communication orders, roles and other attributes of team work. However, often the Scrum that is in books is far from being reflected in reality and, as a result, significant gaps in the effectiveness of team interaction attributes can form, reducing overall productivity.

Hidden text

At the same time, I would like to warn the reader against thoughtlessly copying rules developed by someone or for a specific situation: a document consisting of unclaimed elements does not work, and the leader who forcibly implements it loses his managerial (political, if you like) position .

Management extreme volunteering

Let’s imagine a situation where the team is offered not pre-defined roles and a ready-made information field of the company, but self-organization with free attendance during the remote implementation of the project. It was in this non-trivial situation for a manager that PMI Moscow volunteers worked. Obviously, difficulties arise, for example:

1. Who is in charge here? If he is not determined from above or his position is unsteady, there will be a clash – the leader is forced to prove himself, be accepted and take responsibility. Is teamwork possible without a leader? Don't think. Another thing is that servant leadership is used in Agile (there are interesting cases), which is so atypical for the Russian authoritative management culture. Myself stumbledWhen prepared for the PMP exam. Many volunteers come from structures with an authoritarian management style – it takes time to adapt.

2. Who is responsible for what? Often a “manager” is confused with a “leader”, a “role” according to the book, and they are credited with the absolute right to guide others and not do the work with their own hands. In volunteer projects, where there is an acute shortage of competent, motivated hands, working only with your head is an unaffordable luxury. The professional deformation of many managers does not allow them to quickly accept this and rebuild.

3. Where is the standard of “correct”? It’s one thing when this question is answered by people in authority or when a team takes the PMBoK reference book and desperately implements everything that is written there. It’s another matter when this authoritative source does not exist – many people have unique experience, and the project is voluntary: it’s unlikely that anyone will want to obey force or an inanimate standard of knowledge. The main thing is not to go to extremes: not to create more “correct” answers than there were questions or not to fill your path with a mountain of unanswered questions.

4. What is “harm”? Each person tends to independently formulate criteria for the harmfulness of what is happening. What is meant by harm: damage to personal obvious/hidden interests or team ones? And what to do if you have to choose between personal and public?

5. Who is who here? In a company where positions are defined, there are at least the concepts of competencies and responsibilities in the form of guidelines – an understanding arises of what functionality can at least be expected from a person. In a volunteer project, the priority of expectations from a team member is modified:
(1) availability of free time
(2) motivation to spend it on voluntary team activities
(3) and only in third place can competencies be placed.

If at least one of the three elements is missing, participation in a volunteer project is difficult, but if it is missing in relation to point 3, then the communication environment among PMI professionals can quickly fill the lack of knowledge and skills. Often people came there to volunteer precisely to gain experience – this was also my reason for participating in several projects.

Team charter as needed

Faced with the managerial difficulties of volunteering, in a project to automate work on the content of the Moscow branch website, the team came to the need to discuss a unified understanding of the principles of effective communication, collective decisions, concepts, etc. From the very beginning of the experiment, methods were applied Lean And Agile:”We do not produce unnecessary things and try to quickly learn from our mistakes“. So he appeared on the team Issue log (problem log) and Lessons learned register (lessons that we have learned and don’t want to repeat), free to edit by any team member. Descriptions of these documents can be found in PMBoK 6th edition; in Scrum, their contents usually appear on Retrospectives.

All situations that, in the opinion of team members, led to group ineffectiveness or damage to personal interests were recorded as problems. Some of the problems encountered were resolved immediately thanks to the management experience of the group members: this is how they came to the need for flexible time for remote communication, taking into account the difference in time zones according to the principle “seven do not wait for one” and a maximum of saved artifacts to create the already difficult exchange of information – recording video calls, Sharing software, etc.

Applying “5 whys” rule (see also in PMBoK 6th edition: root case analysis And fishbone diagram), from the constant influx of supposedly new problems, you can find their root cause, eliminate the source, without wasting time on constantly smoothing out the consequences. So, from most of the problems that arose, we came to the need to form a Charter for the project team. The PMI Moscow mentor community understood the inevitability of the storming stage (Tuckman's leader model), in connection with which volunteers were actively supported: workshops were conducted by both members of the department and invited experts (see. publications in the official PMI Moscow group with free educational content).

You can find many classifications of team roles (for example, Belbin, Adizes – you can read it my article on the application and identification of roles). A team, as opposed to a work group, can be attributed various additional attributes that supposedly determine special effectiveness. But the guaranteed recipe is conveyed, as it seems to me, “at the tips of the fingers.” Thus, an effective team is distinguished by: (1) a task (goal) recognized by the members, the achievement of which is possible only through joint efforts (2) principles of interaction that are obvious (understandable) to team members, which can be expressed in roles, special communication and other forms of interaction (3 ) clear personal interests of team members, which stimulate them, without opposing them, to achieve team interests (4) usefulness and obviousness of personal contribution to achieving the goal.

Often the interests of the team come into conflict with personal ones, and their observance is perceived as “harm” for the individual. It seemed to me quite environmentally friendly to define “harm” not by the short-term subjective experience of a person, but by the wisdom of generations. After all, it often happens that short-term benefits need to be sacrificed not only for the team’s interest, but such a choice also needs to be made in favor of long-term personal success: “one person can’t take down a mammoth, but you have to learn to share with other team members.”

Starting Contents of the Team Charter

“This book is for heroes. For those people who want to remake their country or the whole world. And they want to do this, as it seems to them, quite disinterestedly.”?Excerpt from the book Tarasov Vladimir – Technology of life. Book for heroes

Below, inspired by the expert on stratagems V. Tarasov, through the prism of the PMBoK knowledge sections, where interpersonal frictions of a newly formed team most often occur, are text examples Team Charter:

About responsibility

Fearlessness (courage) begins in the fact that there is no point in people on the team being afraid – they will not be punished for someone else’s guilt (echoes Scrum Value – Courage). This is how the fear of not fulfilling one’s duty begins, in the everyday sense, obligations on the task taken are strengthened – after all, punishment is understandable and inevitable. Just like a reward.

Possible phrase of the Charter: Our fearlessness is manifested in the fact that we take on tasks with full responsibility, but we know that failure to complete them will entail a fair team punishment, because major success is always a team effort.

A person’s path is subject to many temptations: through direct interaction with the world (passion, money and fear), his feelings (honor, love for the nation, parents), but the most terrible thing is the phrase “I did everything I could” – it removes responsibility from him in advance.

Possible phrase of the Charter: Success, like failure, is a team effort, so helping a colleague at the wrong time is considered a misdemeanor.

Disorganization leads to injustice and fear in maintaining order: when a coward retreats alone, this is disorder, when a brave man strives alone to win, this is disorganization.

Phrase: A job done alone is worse than a job left undone. Skillful use of team assets is a sign of professionalism and wisdom.

It’s more environmentally friendly to praise not a person, but his actions (by the way, I’ve seen this in Gippenreiter – we are all a little children).

Phrase: We honor not the person who committed the act, but the act itself. The reward for an action is not a privilege, the punishment for an offense is not an evil: all this is a law for honoring what has been done and maintaining an effective team. Reward and punishment are inevitable, do not depend on the personality of the recipient and are the responsibility of the giver.

The principles of public responsibility for work in companies deserve separate research and articles. those striving for turquoise.

About quality

Divide and conquer (as User story on Individual tasks for programmers). Hungry people are easier to manage; well-fed people are difficult to predict. A common enemy unites.

Possible phrase of the Charter: We treat any task, even small and unimportant, as large and important to ensure a high-quality approach. We divide any large one into smaller ones – quick victories feed us more often, this is how we come to satiety on a long journey, the meaning of which becomes clear – to be satisfied with small, high-quality victories.

It breaks where it is thin. Where it's subtle – tear on purpose! An analogy can be drawn with accumulation technical debt.

Phrase: Any hidden problem or uncertainty is the cause of unexpected negative changes, so we make everything secret explicit and the unsteady – solid, in order to avoid introducing new unpredictable elements into an already changeable life.

About the action(s)

An unprepared command action is dispiriting, even if canceled in time.

Possible phrase of the Charter: We honor the efforts and responsiveness of our colleagues and do not encourage ill-considered actions.

“Resting on laurels” begins with the awareness of one’s superior position in front of team members and is detrimental to the personality of the deceased, first of all, since it relaxes and stimulates deterioration.

Phrase: Any victory is a temptation to carelessly celebrate, so we recognize victories, but avoid carelessness. The team is strong in the indifference of what to do and with whose hands. But not using the most effective solution is a reckless use of shared resources..

Alliance (friendship at work) begins with recognition of the path (personal aspirations) of another person: “Hold with harm, but move with gain.” Unrealistic plans throw the team into disorganization.

Phrase: To enhance mutual benefit from each other, we recognize the existence of personal aspirations, honor them and, if possible and the needs of the other party, indicate the path of development of the team member in every request that is important to us. The progress (movement) of a team member towards a common result is recognized as mutually effective only if there is his personal benefit from the future state with the progress realized.

The word cannot be reversed, and the leader (giving the order) is responsible for the issued order for execution – he provides the subordinate with everything necessary (like a servant), so as to transfer the right of responsibility.

Possible phrase of the Charter: The person who issued the instruction to the colleague is responsible for the lack of resources (time, knowledge, other assets) to fulfill the instruction (request, task).

About communication

Every joke has some humor in it.

Phrase: There are no communications in the team that are devoid of meaning, “just like that.”

Answering the wrong questions is a sign of disrespect, the beginning of deception that there is a reason for a future war.

Phrase: We answer questions directly and provide unsolicited information only after receiving prior consent to receive it.

The reason for the war is ignorance of its outcome. War is the path of deception, deception is the path of war. Forcing to deceive is forcing for war. The technology of deception consists in substituting concepts – from those that cannot be relied upon to those that supposedly can be relied upon. Ending a conflict situation begins with clarifying the prospects for its escalation and then with finding unifying points. To be invincible before the enemy = to know the enemy = to love the enemy. The most useless war is a war for the past (revenge), the bloodiest is for the present (an immediate call to action), the fight that requires wisdom is only in the future. It helps to avoid “blood” in the present. “To break the enemy, you need to show him the way to life.” Closing doors behind you is approaching a room without doors, don’t slam the door in a relationship, you don’t know how many of them are still open.

Phrase: Any conflict situation that develops into a confrontation of opinions with increased emotional intensity is a sign of short-sightedness of the participants. Any deliberately conveyed false information is the beginning of a conflict situation. Forcing to lie, including through emotional pressure – forcing into a conflict situation, the result of which is clear to the force. People on the path of personal development do not conflict.

Afterword

I want to finish the article about the Team Charter not with my own thoughts, but with ones that fit quite well into the context of our interaction with people:

• All people are teachers

• Don't judge – and you won't

• The best education is your own example!

Good luck to you in mastering management skills!