One Next Step: Improve Teamwork by Assessing Rule Adherence and Defining Actions

The purpose of the evaluation is to recognize, together with our team, everything we are already doing successfully in alignment with our team agreements, and to identify areas where improvements or corrections are advisable in order to level up in a given topic. The tasks provided on this page help us reflect on these individually and collectively. Along the way, we can recognize both individual and team responsibility, and understand the significance of our specific actions and attitudes as key factors influencing our team’s success.

Do we remember our team agreements — the rules we’ve agreed upon with our colleagues on how to work together? And are we actually following all of them? Are these rules and expectations realistic, or should we modify them? What should we do, how should we behave to become even more successful as a team?

At the beginning of the evaluation, we look back and review the past — ideally short — period, e.g., 1 week / 1 sprint / 1 operational cycle. What do we notice? Did we adhere to our agreements? Did they help or hinder us in successfully (efficiently, on time, with an acceptable error rate, etc.) completing our tasks? Compared to our very best potential, where do we currently stand in this area? What would make a difference, what would it look like if we rated our team’s performance just one point higher than now? This is how we search for what we want to newly or freshly commit to, and do differently in the next cycle. What is the one — even small — concrete step we will definitely take to be more successful by the end of the next unit of time?

During the evaluation, we can internalize that it is the team that decides exactly how we work together — and our collective success depends on that. We are accountable to each other for the decisions we make and for following them. We’ll also likely recognize that team agreements occasionally need to be renegotiated, because the nature of our work and how best to approach it changes over time. Therefore, if between evaluations someone feels that a team rule no longer serves the team’s goals effectively, they are obliged to bring it to the team’s attention as soon as possible so that we can reconsider and, if necessary, modify it at the earliest opportunity.

• Make a copy of the Google Form and update it for your own use.
• Share the form with your team and ask them to fill it out two working days before the scheduled meeting. This gives you time to analyze and summarize the responses.
• Create the collaboration space for your team meeting online, or prepare the room if you’re meeting onsite.
• Plan the meeting agenda and timing.
• Hold the meeting with your team.
• Evaluate the meeting. You can find guiding questions in the Feedback section.
• Add the agreed next steps from the meeting to your team’s task board (e.g., in Jira).
• Follow up on the implementation of these commitments.
• Re-evaluate the topic and your achievements regularly, and agree on new steps to further improve collaboration.

At the end of the meeting or immediately afterward, ask participants for feedback to evaluate the session. A practical tool for collecting feedback is menti.com.

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I’m curious to hear your feedback on how successfully you used the information and tools provided here with your team.
Feel free to share your experiences in a comment — what worked well, what worked less so, and what you did differently that proved effective.