Team working – every team needs rules
What are the key principles for a successful team? One aspect is that every the team needs rules which have to be clearly communicated. Ensure all members of the team understand these and take responsibility for them.
Rules may be too strong a word, boundaries may be better, but whatever the right word for you the principle is the same.
Each team has common themes, but they also have distinct areas they need to get right to succeed. Generalities in team working are useful to a degree but the specifics and boundaries need to be defined and agreed from the outset.
So a project team needs to define success at the start of the project, and the specifics of what will make the project successful needs to be clearly stated.
Teams need to know what is important and part of this is the rules of their team. These boundaries help everyone to know what is expected. With clear rules the team has a better opportunity for success.
The rules might be in the form of timekeeping, language, approach to internal customers, attitude etc. You really get to understand why rules are vital for any team when they are not in place. A team which defines and agrees its own rules is even better, but that’s another story.