Team trust through agreements

The importance of working by agreement as a team is based on the simple observation that we are either working from the tension of assumptions or from team constructed agreements. Agreements are shared commitments to what will work for all based on the realities that we work within.

Agreements build trust and trust is important because performance and creativity move at the speed of trust.

We can create some agreements as a whole team, as subgroup members of the team, or in one-to-one contexts. It is a good practice to keep these documented somewhere for reference so that we can work from the actual language that we create for our agreement. It's okay that several agreements do not get recorded because they're more on the basis of an understanding between and among us as a team.

The agreements grid demonstrates that there are four kinds of agreements that we can create as teams. There are general and specific agreements as well as immediate and tested. These four categories create a grid of four possibilities.

In this grid we can create general immediate agreements, specific immediate agreements, general tested agreements and specific test agreements.

A general immediate agreement is one in which we can just simply implemented without any testing because we have enough consensus in the team to go ahead with it. An example is that we agreed to use a certain kind of software app to update each other every day but it doesn't specify how we are going to do that, that it's up to each one of us to decide how we will do that, but we will according to agreement update each other in a daily basis.

A specific immediate agreement is one which again we can just simply implement without testing and it's one in which we specifically detail what the agreement is about. So and example would be that we not only agree to use the specific software app but we also agree to update each other first thing in the morning and at the end of business.

The general tested agreement is one which is flexible but is one that we actually go through testing, after which we critiqued the test in which we can or concerns and finally craft a general agreement that the team will implement.

The specific tested agreement is flexible and one in which we implement after testing and critiquing as a team.

The process for creating tested agreements whether general or specific is very simple. We talk about what matters to us as we work together considering things like communication and coordination, points of tension and disconnects, where things can get bogged down or where people can get overwhelmed.

We choose one that we want to start with and we together craft proposal which is a proposed agreement that we can test as a team for specific periods of time. It's important to ask people to voice any concerns, considerations or exceptions as we consider proposals. This makes proposals highly realistic and more engaging and more supported. We then test our proposals and get together for the critique. The critique is simply the questions of what went well and why and what might want to change based on our experience. We then tweak and if necessary retest the new proposal and then as a team implement what works.