Chartering Project Teams

What To Do and How To Do It  by Terry Brooks Grier, Used and adapted with permission

It wasn’t that many years ago that the only teams principals had to worry about were athletic teams. Crises usually occurred when the football coach took a job at a rival school or the girl's volleyball coach suspended an all-state player for violating curfew. Today, things are changing….The use of teams or ad hoc committees to support concepts such as teacher empowerment, school improvement plans, and site-based decision making are increasing. Today, some school systems are even advocating the use of cross-functional teams, a concept that originated in the English coal mines of the 1930s (Kriegel and Brandt, 1996). Parents, teachers, students, central office staff members, and support staff members are serving on teams to help principals make a variety of school decisions.

What Teams Do
Principals do not need to form a project team or committee to handle every problem; principals make hundreds of independent decisions each day. As Block (1993) points out, however; the quickest results often come by having groups meet regularly to discuss improvement ideas.  Kriegel and Brandt (1996) report that teams have a life of their own. Just like children, they go through stages of development.

Each project team must have a champion….The champion provides leadership and direction. Similar to an athletic coach, the champion is responsible for coaching the team and he or she rarely “plays” or directly participates in the game. In the early stages of team development, champions must set the stage with the team by conducting an orientation session. The role of champions is to get the team excited about the project, explain their role, and model the standards of participation. They point out that in later meetings, team members will take turn serving as group facilitator, time keeper, and record keeper. [The champion] is responsible for determining and commu­nicating what the project team must accomplish.

Champions must understand there is usually a period of conflict as team members begin working together. During this time, they are respon­sible for restating goals, managing conflicts, and reassuring members of the team. In the third phase of team development, natural leaders emerge and cooperation begins. Members try hard to work together and the champion begins to distance him or herself from the group--except for feedback sessions.  After a number of work sessions, most teams enter a maturity stage, accomplishing well-defined tasks that everyone agrees upon. The champion allows the team to plan and accomplish goals as well as solve their problems.  The last phase of the team development is the closing down stage. The team has accomplished its task and outlived its purpose. The role of the champion is to plan a team celebration and disband the team.

Chartering a Project Team
With the help of the Xerox Corporation, our district developed a technique to help the champion clearly communicate the “What” to project team mem­bers. We call the process Chartering a Project Team….The charter document contains the following components:

Project Team Name. The first task in completing a charter document is to give the project team a name. Usually this means considering what the champion wants the team to accomplish and naming the team accordingly….A clear, concise name establishes a clear project team focus.

Desired Outcomes. Everyone has been on at least one team whose first job was to figure out the reason for its existence. This component of the charter document lets the project team members know exactly what the champion expects the team to accomplish. The desired outcome is the out­put that result from the team’s efficiency….It is very important for the champion to com­municate whether or not the project team should develop and implement solutions to a problem.

[Suggested direction]. [Suggested direction, also known as] Critical variables describe the project team’s parameters….Critical variables are things the team should consider, who team members should be talking to, and where the process should begin and possibly end. The critical variables allow the champion to help shape the direction of the project team.

Time Frame. The time frame component of the charter establishes a beginning and end for the project team. While special circumstances might influence the time frame, the champion should be flexible when communi­cating the time frame to the team. The time frame should include target dates for the team to complete certain portions of their project and check­points for project team representatives to make progress reports.

While meeting with team representatives to discuss its progress, the champion should listen carefully to the team members, asking positive questions that do not criticize or judge. Examples might include:

• Have you gathered data? Would you share them with me?
• Do you feel that we have the right people on the team?
• Do you need additional resources?
• What are the processes you are using?
• Are all the team members pulling their weight?

In most circumstances, the champion takes a strong directing role during the first team meeting, behaves more like a consultant during the second meeting, and simply monitors the team’s progress during regular­ly scheduled update meetings. Regular communication is a key to team success.

Resources. It is the champion’s responsibility to identify resources for the project team. Resources might include people who have experience or expertise in the problem area, money, time, programs to benchmark, or materials. During update meetings, project team members often request additional resources to complete the project. It is the champion’s responsi­bility to obtain these extra resources or to suggest alternatives. The cham­pion is responsible for making sure that the level of the team’s challenge is matched to the level of its resources. Without tools, support, and training, teams are doomed to fail. Teams must have adequate background informa­tion, access to relevant data, an adequate budget, and a strong communi­cation system.

Decision-Making Authority. The champion should be very clear in communicating how much decision-making authority the team will have….Up front communications will go a long way in preventing committee or project team members from becoming upset if their ideas are not fully accepted by the champion or the champion’s supervisor.

Champion. The champion should list his or her name, address, and telephone number on the charter document. It is important for team mem­bers to know how to reach the champion during work hours or emergencies.

[Membership]. Team members should have expertise or a keen interest in the team project….The optimum number of people serving on a project team is 8 and a team should never exceed 10 members.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” The Cat responds, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” This is not much dif­ferent from the problem principals face when working with project teams of staff members, parents, and students who also want to know “which way I ought to go...” to improve the school.

The charter document is a simple tool principals can use to help answer that question. The document is usually no longer than one typed page. In addition to guiding a project team, it can be shared with members of the staff to keep them informed of school improvement initiatives. The process has become a big hit with the principals in our district and I hope it will help other educational leaders improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the teams and committees with which they work.

References
Block, P Stewardship. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1993.
Kriegel, R., and Brandt, D. Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers: Developing Change-Ready People and Organizations. New York: Warner Books, 1996.
Peters, T. Thriving on Chaos. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.

                                                                 
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