Working agreement

A working agreement a set of principles you’ve agreed to follow as a group, to do your best work. These should be concrete things that people can actually do. To develop them, ask yourself:

• What are some things we should always do?
• What are some things we should never do?
• How should we communicate?
• How can we make this the best team we’ve ever worked with?

Example principles:

• Ask for help when we need it
• Be transparent and honest
• Actively give constructive feedback
• Join meetings on time
• Communicate our schedule and mark absences on a shared calendar
• Save all in-progress work to a shared location
• Monotask during working sessions
• Listen with respect when others are speaking

These ideas draw heavily on Lara Hogan’s writing about working groups.