Team Norming Workshop

A project vision statement is extremely helpful. It provides a direction with clear deliverables and a timeline. Using the image of the pyramid, it is the tip of the pyramid. It thus serves as an orientation point for your journey to project success.

It is a start.

We learned in Part I that numerous factors must be taken into account to move from the tip of the pyramid down to the base. The project team is at the heart of the project. It serves as one link from the top to the bottom of the pyramid.

Furthermore, you don’t need just a team but a performing team. This is why it is not sufficient to merely form a team, defining roles and responsibilities. You have to actively move your team from the forming stage to the performing stage.

This is where team norming kicks in. A team norming workshop is an exer-cise for you and your team to jointly define the roles and responsibilities of each individual on the team. You talk about the expectations and motivations on the

individual and group level. You define and agree on the rules of engagement that keep the team together. In short, you set the team boundaries and define the rules of the game. As such, you lay a framework for team performance. Consequently, the sooner you conduct this workshop with your team, the greater the chance that you can move your team to the desired performance stage.

Let’s take a closer look at how to prepare and conduct this team norming work-shop. Once you have an idea of the direction of your project, you should start think-ing of formthink-ing your team. This includes developthink-ing at least a high-level project plan.

The accompanying resource plan contains information about the proposed roles and responsibilities of the individual members on the team. Assigning roles and respon-sibilities to individuals forms the team. At this point the team norming workshop kicks in. The purpose of the workshop is to achieve a mutual understanding among the team members of each individual role and how it relates to the others, forming a whole. In addition, it strives for support of and for each individual role.

This idea distinguishes forming a team from norming a team. Norming means that you secure the understanding and support of everyone on the team for the respective roles and the rules of engagement. As project leader, you do not dictate these rules. Instead, you and your team develop them jointly.

Let’s look at a possible agenda for a team norming workshop:

1. Project motivation, vision, objectives, and scope 2. Roles, responsibilities, expectations, and motivations

3. Communication rules on individual and team level (core and extended team)

4. Next steps

10.3.1 Project Motivation, Vision, Objectives, and Scope

Begin the workshop by presenting and discussing the project motivation, vision, objectives, and expected scope. The project charter and the outcomes of the vision-building workshop are key inputs for this agenda point.

It is essential that your team not only understand the project motivation, vision, objectives, and expected scope, but internalize them. After all, the team is respon-sible for delivering the project. Hence, spend enough time with your team on the first agenda point and do not proceed until you are sure that you and your team are on the same page.

10.3.2 Roles, Responsibilities, Expectations, and Motivations

The second agenda point addresses the expected roles and responsibilities. For each role, prepare one flip chart on which you write the responsibilities and deliverables of this role and the proposed person assigned to it. It saves time when you prepare

the flip charts prior to the workshop. Spread them around the meeting room, hang-ing them, for example, on the wall so that all roles are visible. You or the facilitator briefly describe each role and the key responsibilities and deliverables. You then ask your team to go to each flip chart and write down their understanding of the respective roles on the flip charts. Ask for their input on responsibilities, deliver-ables, and expected skills as well as what the person in that role can expect from the team in fulfilling its role and vice versa. Every team member is involved in this exercise. Allow at least 20 to 30 minutes for this exercise. Once every team member has had a chance to record their thoughts, each role is discussed individually among the group based on the information captured on the flip chart.

It is important that every team member knows the responsibilities, deliverables, and expectations of each role. Plus, every team member must buy into this role description. If discrepancies or different expectations exist, this is the time to dis-cuss these issues and resolve them.

When you discuss the expectations for and from the individual roles, you may provide the principles of the project leadership pyramid as categories. In other words, what does the team expect from the role with respect to building and achieving the project vision, nurturing collaboration, promoting individual and team performance, cultivating learning, and ensuring results? And what can the individual filling that role expect from the team to help him or her fulfill the role’s responsibilities and deliverables?

10.3.3 Engagement Rules on Individual and Team Level

The third part of the workshop addresses the activities and rules of engagement of the team as a unit. The key question to answer is how the team as a whole can help achieve the vision of the project, nurture collaboration, promote team performance, cultivate team learning, and ensure the delivery of expected results. You may want to consider starting this part of the workshop with a guided brainstorming session, asking the team to write down their suggestions on separate moderation cards.

Have team members initial their cards with the categories of their response. The categories are V for vision and project objectives and the resulting scope, C for col-laboration, P for performance, L for learning, and R for project results. Following the presentation of the results, the team prioritizes the input for each category.

The three cards that get the most votes will be discussed by the project team. They become the leading mottos of the daily work of the team in the coming weeks of the project mission.

The leading mottos are not carved in stone. Project circumstances change and so do the mottos. For example, you may develop one motto for the whole project duration and one for the operational work for a limited time of maybe just a couple of weeks. You and your team adjust the latter one to the project requirements at that specific time. We will come back to the idea of creating a leading operational motto in the next two chapters.

10.3.4 Next Steps

The final agenda item (next steps) seems obvious. Decide with the team when you want to revisit the results of the team norming workshop to make necessary adjustments.

Trust me, this will become necessary. Every team will go through a storming phase, as explained in the first part of the book. A team norming workshop does not mean that you can skip this storming phase. Although this may be the idea behind conducting a team norming workshop at the beginning of a project, you cannot forgo a storming phase, and there is nothing bad about it. It can be difficult to define and assign roles to individuals, especially at the beginning of a new project. It takes time to find out if the team set-up works as designed. This is why you need to revisit the rules of engagement and make adjustments where necessary. More on this in the next chapter.

10.3.5 The Value of a Team Norming Workshop

Team norming workshops are a powerful exercise, securing the development of performing teams. And they are not limited to the business world. Team normings in a nonbusiness environment may be less formal, but you still must ensure overall agreement of all team members on the rules of engagements. At a minimum, the project leader must make certain that people know their roles and responsibilities, what the team expects from them, and vice versa.

The team norming workshop serves as a great team-building exercise. However, team building does not and must not stop with this workshop. The workshop helps form and norm the team. It is necessary to help build a performing team, but it is not sufficient. Team building is an ongoing activity. It is your responsibility to plan sufficient time for additional team-building activities. This, too, is a team activity. Do not think only the project leader is responsible for coming up with team-building activities. The whole team is responsible. Ask your team for sugges-tions and let them plan and conduct team-building events.