Teamwork Exercise: Developing Ground Rules

Introduction

Establishing ground rules for how a team will work together is an essential step that teams should take before embarking on any collaborative endeavor. Developing ground rules sets an important foundation for how the team is expected to work together in order to accomplish its goals and serves as a reminder of the value of honesty, consistency, and respect for one another.

Exercise Purpose

• To help your team consider those ground rules that might be effective in helping you to work collaboratively and to remain focused on your work; and
• To assist you in reaching consensus on the ground rules that will guide your work together.

Exercise Instructions

• Using the nominal group process, brainstorm a list of potential ground rules for the team.
• Combine and clarify the suggestions.
• Arrive at a consensus on the set of ground rules you will use to govern your work.
• Discuss whether the suggested ground rules are comprehensive and agreeable to all members of the team. It is important to consider, at a minimum, the following questions:
• Have you set an expectation for how much each team member is expected to contribute (i.e., in terms of work products and attendance)?
• Is there an expectation about how group decisions will be made (i.e., by consensus, majority vote, etc.?)
• Are you clear about how members will conduct themselves during team meetings (i.e., limiting personal war stories, not interrupting others, confronting one another with respect, etc.?)
• Document your ground rules so that you have a written record.
• Post these rules in your regular team meeting room. Team members will then have a constant visual reminder of the ground rules under which the team agreed to operate.
• Over the course of your work together, periodically review the ground rules to ensure that they are still relevant to the team’s work and agreeable to all members. Add new rules as a team if the need arises.