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Team Setup

Form a team with individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives.

The success of a project begins with the combined powers of a team. Form a team consisting of people with different skillsets. The variety of viewpoints, backgrounds, and experiences will lead to stronger collaborations and unexpected ideas.

Team Setup helps you understand how your team can leverage each other’s skills and knowledge to tackle a problem together. Use it to identify any gaps in expertise and who else you’ll need to bring on board. Create alignment around goals, roles, values, and boundaries. This activity will focus and guide your team.

6 people
60 minutes

What you’ll need

  • Pens or markers
  • Sticky notes (2 colors)

Prerequisite Activities

  • None

Downloadable Materials

Preparation

step 1

Identify team members

Gather people with different expertise who can commit and contribute to the project. Start with these roles and add additional specialist roles based on your project objectives. Aim to get at least one person from each of these roles:

Driver: This person has the highest responsibility for the project and will make key decisions to navigate the project. This might be a project leader, product owner, or manager.

Facilitator: This person will guide the team through conversations, activities, and collaboration when applying design thinking to your project. This can be anyone on the project team or a dedicated facilitator.

User Expert: This person will share information from the user’s perspective. This might be marketing, customer support, or user experience (UX) researchers.

Business: This person will share information from the business perspective.

Design: This person will help tell the story of how your team’s solution will add value to your users’ lives. This person can help make the prototype.

Technical: This person will share information from the technical perspective. This person can help make the prototype.

Additional roles to consider: project or executive sponsor, subject matter experts, or strategist.

Tip

The diverse perspectives and background will assist in the generation of a variety of unexpected ideas.






Instructions

step 1

Introduce yourselves

Each person will share their name, role at the company, background, and what excites them about this project.

step 2

State project motivation

Discuss why the team is gathered together. What is the motivation driving this project? Write a few on sticky notes and add them to the canvas.

step 3

Define project goal

Discuss what the team wants to achieve together. It doesn’t have to be a specific solution. Consider items you expect to be showing to stakeholders, other teams, or users after this project is completed. Write the summarized goal on a sticky note and add to the canvas.

step 4

Assign roles

Have each person write on a sticky note their name and how they can contribute to the team. Take turns sharing out loud. Then discuss and assign each person to the project roles. Add their sticky note to the respective location on the canvas. If you don’t have someone representing the above roles, you’ll have to find a way to get the information or skill that is essential to the project.

step 5

Define team values

Have each person write down at most 3 answers to this question: what are the core values that the team shares? Use one sticky note per answer.

Place the sticky notes on a surface as you share out loud. Begin to group any answers that are similar. Use a different colored sticky note to label the new group of notes. Add these larger themes to the canvas.

step 6

Define team roles and rituals

Discuss how the team will communicate and work together. Add them to the canvas.

Use these questions as a starting point:

  • How will we communicate and keep everyone up to date?
  • What rules do we want to set and follow?
  • What rituals can we do to boost our team?
  • How will we make decisions?
step 7

Create a team name

Finally, give your team a name! Though this project may require individual expertise and alone time to work, every team member is working towards a common goal.

step 8

Refer back

Share this with each team member, put it on display, and refer back as needed.