All aboard! Map roles and responsibilities in your team
Goals
- Create a shared understanding of roles and responsibilities in the team
- Clarify everyone's domains and contribution levels
- Give team members ownership over their role
- Foster trust and collaboration
What you need
- Post-its of two different colours
- Red sticky dots
- Pencils, markers, etc.
- A virtual whiteboard if you're running this remotely
Preparation
Set up a collaborative space with 5 areas with the following titles and prompts:
- Captain - What tasks do you see your role leading?
- First Mate - What tasks do you want to closely support?
- Scrubber - What tasks are you willing to help with but prefer to take a back-seat?
- Passenger - What tasks would you prefer to avoid?
- My other boats - What responsibilities do you have in other teams outside of this one?
Have red dots at hand that people can stick on post its, and post-its of two distinct colours.
Reflect on my own role
Start the session by handing team members post-its of the first colour.
Ask them to consider the sections above from the perspective of their own role and, for each of them, to write down the tasks that fit the prompt.
Make sure that each team member's post-its can be identified as theirs. You could ask people to keep them in separate clusters and write their name nearby.
Examine each other's roles
Next, allow participants to take stock of each other's post-its in the five sections and think about:
- What surprises you?
- What would you challenge?
- What's missing?
Ask them to flag challenges or questions by sticking a red dot next to the relevant post-it, and to use post-its of the second colour to write down the tasks that they think are missing.
Discuss and align
Discuss questions, concerns and suggestions until all red dots and post-its for missing tasks have been addressed and a shared understanding of each others' roles has been reached.
Share a summary of the discussion and roles with the team after the session.