Collaboration and teamwork are essential to the success of a business. Establishing team norms–a set of unwritten rules that guide behavior – can boost team efficiency. Common team norms relate to decisions, project management, dealing with conflict, and meetings. For instance, norms for team meetings would include how they should be structured, who will lead the meeting, how to encourage participation, who will keep the minutes, and how meeting transcription will be done.
To build a successful team, you need to:
- Create and agree upon a set of group norms
- Establish steps to implement those norms in day-to-day work activities
Here are the steps involved in developing team norms:
- Get all team members to assemble in one place and ask each person to suggest a norm or norms and make a list of these. You can also divide the team into groups of three or four people and get each group to brainstorm their own list of guidelines. This strategy is ideal for team members who don’t know each other well.
- Once you have the list of suggestions, you need to eliminate redundant ideas and take a collective decision on which norms you want to retain as a group. The abstract list of norms needs to be turned into measurable behaviors.
- It would be a good idea to prioritize your norms and practice them regularly.
- To ensure adherence, create a plan for following through on each norm by identifying responsibilities and timelines.
- New norms can be added over time if necessary.
“You bring your lunch and we will provide the learning (lunch is NOT provided).”
Please plan for possible technical difficulties and arrive 10 minutes early to the following Zoom session: https://cityofdetroit.zoom.us/j/87244883793
City of Detroit email required for verification and attendance.
*Participants can earn .2 CEU per 2-hour course.
Participants must:
- Attend the entire 2-hour course.
- Register here and log in on time.
- Participate in each activity.
This training is only for City of Detroit employees.
