Liam
Team charter workshop
Summary
The team charter workshop aligns teams around their shared purpose and values. Borrowing from Org Design for Design Orgs, I adapted this method to help design teams define their unique “why” - who they are, how they work, and what matters most to them. The outputs below are from a charter workshop I led with the Trello design team, co-facilitated by Marc Jenkinson and Jannis Hegenwald, when we needed to preserve our culture while evolving for growth.
📫 Want to learn more about my work or go deeper on this method? Get in touch.
Use this method when:
- Your team operates in fragmented silos rather than as a connected whole
- You need to align around what motivates and drains your team’s energy
- You’re scaling quickly and need to preserve culture while evolving
Workshop structure
Format: 4 sessions × 3 hours each
Participants: Design team
Outcome: Clearly defined purpose, values, behaviors, and norms
Workshop mission
Workshop agenda
Session 1: Foundations
Goal: Understand where we are today and what great looks like
Before defining who you want to be, you need to understand where you are. This session creates psychological safety while surfacing what’s working, what isn’t, and what energizes the team. By exploring past positive experiences, we identify the conditions that help the team thrive.
Key activities:
- Roses, buds & thorns — Current state assessment across roles, relationships, and culture
- Team personified — If your team was a person, who would represent your best self?
- Work experience bliss — Mining past experiences to identify ideal working conditions
Roses, Buds, and Thorns
Our team, personified
Work experience bliss
Session 2: Purpose and values
Goal: Define why we exist and what we stand for
With a clear understanding of your current state, this session focuses on articulating your team’s unique contribution. Our purpose answers “why do we exist?” while our values define “what do we stand for?” These become the foundation for all future decisions.
Key activities:
- Purpose statements — Draft individual statements, then collaborate to refine
- Values brainstorming — Capture what makes your team unique
Defining our purpose
Defining our values
Session 3: Our work
Goal: Align on what we do and what we want to do
This session bridges ideals with reality. You’ll inventory current responsibilities, identify what should stay or go, and define aspirational work. The goal is creating a realistic vision of how your purpose and values translate into daily activities.
Key activities:
- Ritual reset — Evaluate team processes and ceremonies for effectiveness
- Rituals redesign — Define what you want to be doing more of and what you should cut
Looking back
Looking forward
Planning our landing
Session 4: Collaboration and success
Goal: Define how we work together and measure progress
The final session makes your charter actionable. You’ll establish norms for internal collaboration and cross-functional partnerships, then define success metrics that reinforce your purpose and values. These measures become tools for prioritization, hiring, and team initiatives.
Key activities:
- Collaboration norms — Start/stop/continue for internal teamwork and cross-functional partnerships
- Success metrics — Define 3-5 measures that encourage delivery on your purpose and values
- Next steps — Identify owners for refining and socializing the charter
How we collaborate
Success measures
Impact
A well-run charter workshop creates shared ownership of team culture. Rather than top-down mandates, the team defines their own purpose and values together. This makes the charter a reference point people actually use - for hiring decisions, resolving conflicts, and staying aligned during growth or change.