How to Facilitate Agile Chartering for Purpose

Developing a first draft of the team’s purpose requires two meetings: a prework session and a team chartering workshop. The first meeting is a prework session. In this meeting, product managers, sponsors, and key stakeholders develop a preliminary purpose for the team to review, clarify, and refine. In the second meeting, the product manager takes the preliminary document to a team chartering workshop where the whole group agrees on a first-draft purpose it can embrace.

Here we offer facilitation outlines and sample activities for both of these meetings. We include suggested activities only for the portion of the team meeting that refines purpose. You’ll find expanded activities for facilitating the alignment and context elements of the team charter in Chapter 6, ​Create Coherence by Chartering Alignment​ and Chapter 7, ​Charter Context to Influence Work​.

Conducting the Prework Session

The work sponsor and strategic decision makers start the agile team chartering process by preparing a preliminary document with all three elements of purpose: the product vision, the team mission, and the mission tests. The first draft serves as a starting point for the team and others in the team workshop. Review Table 3, ​Chartering Participants and Roles​ to create an invitation list for the prework session.

Following is a sample agenda for the prework meeting and suggested activities.

Sample Agenda (Prework Meeting)

1. Welcome and introductions

2. Review the agenda

3. Discuss participant perspectives

4. Develop preliminary product vision

5. Develop preliminary team mission

6. Develop preliminary mission tests

7. Review for consistency

8. Clarify the next steps and wrap up

Activity 1: Introduce the Product and Elicit Stakeholder Perspectives

Welcome the participants and make introductions. Introduce the product and ask each participant to clarify his or her views on why the business will support the product. Discuss similarities and differences in perspectives.

Lead the group to seek answers to questions such as:

• How will this product affect the overall business strategy? What impacts can you imagine, both positive and negative?

• Which parts of our market will the product affect and how?

• Will the product require internal and/or external changes in people, development processes, or technology, or all of the above?

• Will team success require changes in organizational structure, staffing, business processes, funding, and so on?

• Which parts of the organization will be affected, if any?

• How will the product owner and team recognize those effects?

Develop your own list of questions. Choose a few that fit from the samples. Add questions specific to your business aspirations and challenges. To avoid overanalyzing, limit your list of questions to no more than ten.

Activity 2: Develop a Preliminary Product Vision

Lead a discussion to define, compare, and contrast a product vision and team mission. Explain them at the same time. Use the descriptions from ​Product Vision​ and ​Team Mission​ earlier in this chapter and examples from Appendix 1, ​Sample Charters​. Clarify the difference between a strategic organizational vision and a product vision.

Hand out examples of product visions. Remember, a product vision focuses on customer value, which is the reason for the team to exist. It describes the big picture of the impact you want to create. For sample visions, see Appendix 1, ​Sample Charters​.

Discuss the question, How will the customers’ world change for the better as a result of this product? Share Esther Derby’s product vision light-switch analogy from ​What Does Your Product Do?​. Pass around plenty of sticky notes and invite silent brainstorming:

• Ask individual participants to think of all the answers to this question they can, writing one on each sticky note.

• Remind writers to seek quantity over quality for now and withhold judgment until later.

• Encourage everyone to write as many ideas as they can in five to seven minutes.

(For variations on brainstorming techniques, see Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Business Creativity for the 90s [Mic91] by Michael Michalko.)

When the brainstorming time is up, collect all the sticky notes and post them on a whiteboard or flip chart. Ask participants to sort the product-vision sticky notes into groups of similar ideas. Then ask them to give a name to each group.

Use the items and names of clusters to develop a rough-draft vision statement. Post it on a flip chart or whiteboard so that everyone can see it throughout the rest of the session.

Next, create a tangible representation of your vision to bring to the whole-group work session. Pick an activity that’ll appeal to your group. For example, you could use building toys, such as little plastic bricks, to construct the vision. You could craft a product box that lists the features. Or draw a wall-sized picture of the world according to your vision. Cut out magazine photos to assemble a poster-sized collage. Create a vision brochure. Or find another hands-on construction activity.

The conversations that occur while the group members build their representations is the most important aspect. The discussion will clarify everyone’s perspective, establish common understanding, and make the product vision tangible.

Activity 3: Develop a Preliminary Team Mission

Review the difference between the product vision and the team mission once again, and reiterate the relationship between the two. Remember, the team mission describes your team’s unique contribution toward achieving the product vision. It includes five critical pieces of information as outlined in ​Team Mission​.

Offer examples of team missions from Appendix 1, ​Sample Charters​ and discuss the question, What is our intention for this team’s unique contribution to realizing the vision?

Use a similar process to the one followed in Activity 2 for developing the product vision. Pass around plenty of sticky notes and do four rounds of brainstorming in pairs. Ask participants to think of everything they can about the work to develop the product. For each round, write one idea on each sticky note. Tell participants to write as many as they can in four five-minute rounds. Remind the pairs to seek quantity over quality for now and withhold judgment until later.

In the first round, identify all of the customers you want this product or service to reach.

In the second round, identify what value the customer will gain from using the product or service.

In the third round, identify where else value will be created by this work. Who else will benefit?

In the fourth round, identify any known qualities or characteristics of the product or service.

When the time is up, collect all of the sticky notes and post them on a whiteboard or flip chart, organized into four areas. As a group, affinity-sort the notes in each area. Name each grouping and identify associated action verbs. Use the names of groupings and action verbs to develop a rough-draft mission statement and write it on the flip chart or whiteboard. Post it where everyone can see it throughout the rest of the session.

Activity 4: Develop Preliminary Mission Tests

Review the definition of ​Mission Tests​ with the group. Remember, mission tests define the indicators you’ll use to recognize project success.

Offer examples of mission tests from Appendix 1, ​Sample Charters​. Discuss what’ll be different when the team accomplishes its mission. How can we measure those differences? How will we know the team is making progress along the way? What does the team need to learn to make the most incremental progress? What would we like our customers to say about us at each release?

Once again, distribute sticky notes and lead a paired brainstorming activity. Ask the participants to pair with a new person and work to identify the effects to look for to let the team know the mission is on track. Effects include: results, consequences, impacts, repercussions, forces, or influences. Effects can impact the world, your business, the team, or your customers. Each pair should think of all the effects of success they can imagine and write one on each sticky note. Remind them to seek quantity over quality for now and withhold judgment until later. Tell the participants to write as many as they can in five to seven minutes.

When the time is up, collect all of the sticky notes and post them on a whiteboard or flip chart. As a group, affinity-sort the notes describing similar effects. Name each affinity group of effects (for example, customer satisfaction).

Lead a group discussion to determine if you’ve gained the results you wanted. Find a measurable test to which you can answer, “Yes, we achieved this” or “No, we didn’t achieve this.”

Next, ask participants to pair with another new person and choose a cluster of notes to work on. Each pair writes a proposal for a mission test or tests for its cluster. Remind the pairs that mission tests have time limits and other success measures included. Use the SMART acronym as a guide: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Have pairs report their proposed mission tests. Help the group refine each mission test to get a draft.

Challenge the group to imagine unintended consequences and discuss them. Ensure that you’re still measuring progress toward results or effects or outcomes, not activities. (For more on unintended consequences, see Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations [Aus96], by Robert D. Austin.)

Choose five or fewer mission tests you’ll include to complete the preliminary purpose. (Remember the concept of GEFN—Good Enough For Now.) Seek consensus or use another group decision process to narrow the list. For more on group decision-making, refer to Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great [DS06] or The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making [KLTF96].

Activity 5: Wrap Up

To conclude the prework session, conduct a final review of all the parts of your preliminary purpose. Do the mission tests reflect the intention of the mission? Is the mission critical to achieving the product vision? Does the product vision provide guideposts for the mission and mission tests? Thank everyone for their effort.

Conducting the Team Chartering Workshop for Purpose

In the team chartering workshop, participants will collaborate to refine the preliminary purpose. Then they’ll continue to develop the whole charter in a first draft. Start by distributing the preliminary purpose to the participants and review the agenda. Participants in this workshop include the product owner, development team members, and stakeholders (or stakeholder group representatives who will work closely on a regular basis with the team).

Following is a sample agenda for a one-day team chartering workshop focusing on purpose (steps 1--3).

Sample Agenda (Purpose)

1. Welcome and introductions

2. Review the agenda

3. Review and revise the preliminary purpose

   • Introduce and clarify the product vision

   • Discuss and refine the team mission

   • Discuss and refine the mission tests

   • Compare the purpose to the Goodness Checklist for Purpose

   • Commit to the initial purpose

4. Facilitate alignment

5. Facilitate context

6. Clarify the next steps and wrap up

Activity 1: Welcome and Introduce the Participants

Participants will want to know they have full support and funding for their work. Begin your workshop with a welcome from the senior product sponsor. If you can’t get a senior product sponsor, get the next-highest-level person you can. The sponsor who’s present accomplishes four tasks:

1. Welcomes everyone to the workshop

2. Thanks participants for attending

3. Describes the business’ interests in the work and declares the sponsor’s support for the ongoing effort

4. Answers brief clarifying questions

Allow a brief time for participant introductions if participants don’t know one another already. If the team’s product is part of a larger program, you might have many teams chartering at the same time. When working with several teams, make sure team members sit together to make the work easier.

Activity 2: Explain the Agenda

After introductions, walk through the agenda for the day, making sure to go over any logistics about the facility (where are the restrooms?) and how you’ll handle lunches and breaks.

Activity 3: Review Preliminary Purpose

Come prepared to describe each part of the charter and answer questions. Your session will go more smoothly if you can explain each part and why the charter is written as it is. Tell the team what you thought about as you developed it. Help the team understand why you made the choices you made. They might offer even better ideas for achieving your product goals if they understand your intentions.

Activity 4: Discuss and Clarify the Product Vision

Introduce and clarify your product vision. Display the tangible vision artwork created in the prework session. The product vision is “owned” by the sponsor and product owner. It’s the most stable part of your draft and the least likely part to undergo extensive change. Make sure you’ve explained the thinking behind the product manager’s vision. Check that everyone shares a common understanding that meets GEFN.

Activity 5: Discuss and Refine the Team Mission

Discuss and refine your rough-draft team mission. Encourage core team members to ask questions. They have to accept ownership of the mission. They will hold themselves accountable to achieve it, so they must believe they can achieve the results.

Your first draft of the team mission is apt to resemble the rough draft you present. Consider suggestions for alternative phrasing to gain greater clarity, guidance, and buy-in. The team mission is stronger when built with input from those who propose it and from those who have to execute it.

Time-box a free-form discussion about the team mission. Encourage groups of three to write new phrases. Each new phrase should amplify and extend their understanding of the work. Ask the groups to report their phrases to the whole and invite participants to offer feedback. Include comments from the product manager. Ask if the product manager thinks the new phrases will lead the team to deliver the product vision. Then, have the small groups revise what they’ve written based on the feedback. Continue until you develop a GEFN draft everyone can live with. As time goes by, the team will revise further as everyone learns more.

Activity 6: Discuss and Refine the Mission Tests

Mission tests come next. For each mission test in your rough draft, assign one pair or trio with mixed perspectives on the work. First, ask them to take a few minutes to review the mission test. Second, determine if it still measures progress toward success. Third, if needed, recommend how to improve or clarify it. Fourth, have the small groups present their new versions to the whole group with two choices: ratify the mission test or discuss it further. Use Roman voting to test for agreement on each one. That is, thumbs up = agreement, thumbs sideway = acquiescence or abstention, thumbs down = disagreement. Continue to revise any tests that don’t get a majority of thumbs up with no thumbs down.

Activity 7: Compare Purpose to the Goodness Checklist

Before committing to an initial purpose, take a few minutes to compare your work so far to the questions in the following Goodness Checklist for Purpose:

• Is your product vision clear, compelling, concise, cohesive, and understandable to anyone in the organization?

• Does the outcome of the vision sustain and advance the organization and larger community?

• Does the team mission clarify how this team and its deliverables will contribute to achieving the product vision?

• Does the team mission clarify why the team’s work is necessary, avoid “how” or prescriptive processes, and focus on qualities and outcomes?

• Do your mission tests contribute to team (or business) learning; specify what, how, and when to measure; and include internal and external tests, as needed? Are the mission tests objective and unambiguous?

• Are the tests within the control of the team or the team and its closest collaborators; and are they useful indicators to test progress toward achieving the team mission?

• Can you tell how the mission tests are intended to “age out” to be replaced with newer, more relevant tests? Can they be used to check true or false? (Did we pass the test or not?)

Ensure that you and the team can answer Yes! to these questions. If you’re unsure, keep working on them. Don’t go on to the next activity until you feel satisfied that this purpose will serve the team well enough to get started on (or continue) its work.

Activity 8: Commit to an Initial Purpose

Continue working on the product vision, team mission, and the mission tests until you reach your GEFN standard. It’s common for work on the team mission to cause a rethinking of the product vision. Or the mission tests might lead to a slightly different concept of the team mission. Iterate until you reach GEFN.

Finally, confirm the core team and project community’s commitment to the purpose. Ask each person in attendance to sign the flip charts (or whiteboard) that display the new first drafts.