Team Norms

This provides you a quick but thorough way to review the possible options for addressing common norms each team will likely use. You can also pick your preferred option and send it to the team leader.
This clarification would help to reduce misunderstandings and conflicts from assumptions about what is proper or not.

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I. How the Team Gets Together:

More on team formation

1. What conditions justify or require cancellation of a meeting?
1. If any one of the members cannot attend.
2. If the leader cannot attend.
3. If a majority of the members cannot attend.
4. If other priorities came up.
5. If it rains or other conditions.
2. How does the team responds to those who arrive late?
1. Ignores it.
2. Stops briefly, then continues.
3. Stops to repeat what happened before the person showed up.
4. Asks someone to explain while the rest of the team continues.
5. Some type of reprimand.
3. How does the team get to know each other as individuals?
1. None.
2. One hour or less in spontaneous discussion.
3. A day of facilitated conference room games.
4. A few days or a week-end of facilitated excercises.
5. A week-long facilitated outdoor trek.
4. How the team respond to those who don't show?
1. Ignored. Minutes Issued.
2. A member of the team
3. The leader reprimands
4. The member's boss
5. Which members of the team can ignore the team's rules?
1. None.
2. Higher levels of the organization. (Directors, Vice Presidents, etc.)
3. Older members of the team.
4. Members with more seniority with the organization.
6. What are the consequences for violating norms:
1. Ignored and forgotten.
2. Private Verbal Reprimand (by the team leader).
3. Private Written Reprimand (from the team leader).
4. Public Verbal Reprimand (at a meeting).
5. Public Written Reprimand (to a file).
7. How does the team self evaluate its approach?
1. never
2. when they have time
3. every time
8. How directly and specifically are communications within the team:
   1. indirect non-specifics (“Someone do this sometime”)
   2. indirect specifics (“Someone do this by 10 AM tomorrow”)
   3. direct non-specifics (“John will do this sometime next week”)
   4. direct specifics (“John will do this by 10 AM tomorrow”)
9. The style of feedback of each other is delivered most of the time:
   1. bluntly (just the facts)
   2. sweetened with a compliment
   3. expressed as a strength
10. What should be discussed between meetings rather than waiting until everyone is together?
(such as criticisms of a member when he or she is not there);

II. How the Team Interacts with Outsiders:

"Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own.
You may both be wrong."

1. What can be discussed with people not in the team;
1. The existance of an organized team
2. Who is on the team
3. Where the team meets
4. Who is helping the team
5. What issues the team is dealing with
6. What information the team wants
7. What information the team has
8. What options the team is considering
9. What proposals the team is considering
10. What recommendations the team is considering
2. Who are considered stakeholders by the team?
1. The team itself
2. Friends of the team
3. Potential Foes of the team
4. Other Teams (via Team Leaders)
5. Immediate Supervisors of team members
6. Middle Management
7. All Middle Managers
8. Upper Management Executives
9. Suppliers and vendors
10. Key Customers
11. All Customers
12. Customers' customers
13. End-user consumers
3. How much exposure the group prefers to have with others:
1. Secret private conversations
(Watergate investigators Woodward and Bernstein had a “Deep Throat” whom they met at clandestine locations)
2. Closed Team meetings / private chats (By only those invited)
(Some companies hold “one up” meetings with their boss's boss.)
3. Open team meetings -- public chats (where anyone can attend)
4. Company-wide gatherings (posted on an Intranet).
5. Open announcements (posted on Internet web pages).
4. The preferred method of communication (level of formality):
   1. no communication at all
   2. face-to-face discussions
   3. telephone conversations
   4. phone-mail
   5. email
   6. memos
   7. formal letters
   8. court documents
5. How directly and specifically individuals communicate with outsiders:
   1. indirect non-specifics (“Someone do this sometime”)
   2. indirect specifics (“Someone do this by 10 AM tomorrow”)
   3. direct non-specifics (“John will do this sometime next week”)
   4. direct specifics (“John will do this by 10 AM tomorrow”)

III. What Impact the team can achieve on conditions beyond the team:

1. How the needs and concerns of stakeholders are included in the team's process (as customers or as witnesses for the prosecution?);
2. How the team balances conflicting interests of various stakeholders (by seniority, favorites, flip of a coin, weighted decision matrix, etc.?);
3. How formal and specific the team defines its goals (numerical changes in specific measures?)

IV. How the Team Achieves Progress Producing Deliverables:

“Democracy is where you can say what you think even if you don't think."

I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.

Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.

1. How issues are addressed:
   1. In a purely structured way (to a predetermined Agenda)
   2. In a mostly/predominately structured way
   3. In a half structured, half random way
   4. In a mostly/predominately random way
   5. In a completely random way (brainstorming)
2. Who may interrupt another while he or she is speaking;
   1. Anyone at any time
   2. Only for “point of personal priviledge”, “point of order”, or other provision in the Roberts of Order or other prior agreement.
   3. Never -- we just let that person run out of steam.
3. How much the team wants to involve itself in the details as a group: (e.g. calling out spelling mistakes during the meeting rather than off-line)
4. Whether a common understanding is confirmed before moving on;
   1. Assumed unless verbal objection is made
   2. By a voice vote (yay's and nay's)
   3. By a roll-call ballot (individual person)
   4. By a secret ballot
5. How decisions are made:
   1. By one person
   2. By the percentage vote (51%, 80%, etc.)
   3. By concensus of all (100%)
6. What are the acceptable basis for decisions:
   1. Personal opinions
   2. Cheap shots
   3. Exaggerations,
   4. Statistics collected internally
   5. Industry statistics
   6. Validated research (FDA Studies)
7. Who accepts responsibility for the way the group works together.
   1. The Team's Sponsor
   2. The Team's Designated Leader
   3. Some members of the team
   4. All members of the team
   5. The team's customers
   6. All stakeholders
8. Who accepts responsibility for results from the group:
   1. The Team's Sponsor
   2. The Team's Designated Leader
   3. Some members of the team
   4. All members of the team
   5. The team's customers
   6. All stakeholders
9. Whether individuals support the team in words and actions (criticism of the group or members in the group?).
   1. Not discussed.
   2. Discussed in private only.
   3. Discussed in small groups only.
   4. Discussed in open.
   5. Names (“stupid, idiotic”, etc.)
10. How the team considers whether adequate resources are available to support their goals (assumes there will be there or calculated precisely);
11. How the group as a whole hold itself accountable for their actions
    1. Non-Specific deadlines by no one in particular
    2. Specific deadlines by no one in particular
    3. Non-Specific deadlines by specific individuals
    4. Specific deadlines by specific individuals