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Team Contract

Roles/Functions:

  • Technical Executive Officer: Sven / Github main: Sven
  • Deputy : Gaudenz / Trello admin: Gaudenz

AWOL/Time Managment/Mettings

  • Please tell Gaudenz either personally or via messenger/mail
  • General tool of communication will be A Discord group

Daily Tasks (Schedule)

  • Wedensday: 8.2..: Brainstorming, deal out of features, Github setup, Trello setup
  • Friday 10.2..: Development phase/Research/Understand template given
  • Monday 13.2..: Development phase/Research/Understand template
  • Tuesday 14.2..: Testing/ Development
  • Wedensday 15.2..: Cleaning, final review, ready for release, deployment
  • Thursday 16.2..: 12.30 Deadline, Afternoon: Retrospection/Presentation

ALL TASKS MAY CHANGE DURING PROCESS!

Target:

  • Successful teamwork
  • Deliver a complete and refined quiz(experience)
  • refining use of admin tools (trello/github/figma)
  • Successful deployment of product
  • All deliverables met as demanded

Example Team-Working-Agreement

courtesy of ARTSY

Introduction:

Ideas for a team-working-agreement, to improve team-working processes and prevent social, personal or habitual issues while working in a team.

Team working agreement

The purpose of the working agreement is to ensure the team shares responsibility in defining expectations for how they will function together and enhance their self-organization process. It creates an awareness of both positive and negative behaviors that can impact the team.

Creating a team working agreement

Overview

  • The goal of a team working agreement is to reinforce positive behaviors while helping our team overcome dysfunctional ones.
  • This process uncovers the existing norms, both positive and negative, that impact team functioning.
  • A great set of questions to ask is:
    • What expectations do team members have of each other?
    • What is working well within our team?
    • What is not working well?
    • What should our team keep doing?
    • What should our team start doing?
    • What should our team stop doing?
  • Behaviors outlined in social contracts may include any positive behaviors that the team wants to encourage such as:
    • Be honest and transparent with no hidden agendas.
    • Help each other and do not hesitate to ask for help.
    • Have forums to discuss tough issues.
    • Cooperate rather than compete with team members.
  • Regularly update the social contract to improve effectiveness.
  • Establish up-front how members will hold each other accountable for the social contract.

Procedure

1. Set the stage (3 mins)

  • Describe what the purpose of the exercise is:
    • "Becoming a team involves commitment to working together and supporting each other in our common goals. This commitment is supported by writing what all team members believe are important protocols for the team to comply with to maximize their capabilities to deliver faster and with higher quality."

2. Gather data (7 mins)

  • Have each team member write down things that are most important to "maximize their capabilities to deliver faster and with higher quality."
    • It’s important to encourage at least 2 items from each team member.
  • Suggest some high level topics such as:
    • Time and location of daily standup
    • Testing strategy (unit, functional, integration, performance, stress, etc.)
    • Build and infrastructure plans (shared responsibilities)
    • Team norms (be on time, respect estimates, help when needed, etc.)
    • How to address bugs/fires during sprint
    • Product manager availability (phone, office hours, attendance in daily standup)
    • Expectations of each role and how they will work together at each phase of the software development life-cycle

3. Generate insights (15 mins)

  • Discuss each item added by the team members and start grouping items which seem to relate to each other.
  • Include time for team members to discuss items they didn't write. This will uncover nuance and help identify which items are not universally agreed upon.
  • Be mindful of the timebox. If you want to limit the number of groups based on importance to keep focused on the most important items, you can then use voting to determine priority.
    • This is optional because some teams have found value in this, while others have not.
    • Voting is also useful if there are a large number of conflicting views on how to do things.

4. Decide what to do (15 mins)

  • For each group, make sure that there are clear actions for each item where applicable.
  • Retrospectives are a good time to have an action that changes an existing working agreement if we realise it’s an impediment to working better together.

5. Close (5 mins)

  • Make sure someone has taken ownership of documenting the working agreement and giving it visibility.
  • Gather feedback from the team on the usefulness/effectiveness of this format for future usage.

Sample meeting agenda

  1. Explain what a team working agreement is.
  2. Share examples of team working agreements.
  3. Write suggested team habits.
  4. Share suggested team habits.
  5. Group suggested team habits.
  6. Vote on 3 - 5 team habits.
  7. Establish the top 5 habits as the team working agreement.
  8. Revisit the work agreement during each retro for additions/changes.

Sample team habits

  • Any change to the sprint backlog requires product manager approval.
  • Always adhere to the Definition of Done criteria for user stories.
  • Update the backlog before each day’s standup.
  • Keep cell phones and laptops away during every sprint meeting.
  • Don’t commit to unknown stories.
  • Documentation for critical tasks.
  • Identify dependencies.
  • Use an impediment backlog for blocked issues.
  • Adhere to code documentation standards.
  • Respect your team member’s time.
  • Don't be afraid to ask for help.
  • Product manager is available during core hours.
  • Be on time for meetings.
  • Communicate individual schedules.

References

  1. GSA Tech Guides. Establishing an Agile Team Working Agreement. Retrieved from https://tech.gsa.gov/guides/agile_team_working_agreement/
  2. Riordan C. M., & O'Brien K. (2012, April 17). For Great Teamwork, Start with a Social Contract. Retrieved from URL https://hbr.org/2012/04/to-ensure-great-teamwork-start
  3. Williams, B. (2018, April 6). An exercise for creating a team Working Agreement. Retrieved from https://medium.com/tech-travelstart/an-exercise-for-creating-a-team-working-agreement-8672c0bf862c
  4. Arrk Group. Work Agreements for a Scrum Team. Retrieved from https://www.arrkgroup.com/thought-leadership/work-agreements-for-a-scrum-team/
  5. Chapman Z. (2019, October 28). How Working Agreements Help Scrum Teams. Retrieved from https://www.clearlyagileinc.com/agile-blog/how-working-agreements-help-scrum-teams