Watch the video lecture to learn how to become a high-achieving design team.
In the space below, the team must work as a group to develop a Team Charter. The Team Charter is a document that is developed in a group setting that clarifies team goals, roles, and responsibilities while establishing important boundaries. The Team Charter is revisited part way through the project to review team roles and responsibilities and modify any procedures around team operations.
The team charter must include the following sections:
Contact Information
What is the name, email, phone number and team role of everyone on the team?
Statement of Purpose
What is a purpose statement that is inspirational for all team members?
Team Roles and Responsibilities
What are the team roles and responsibilities. Who will schedules team meetings and set meeting agendas? Who will be the primary point of contact with the clinical mentor and advisor? Who will ensure that all team members are participating in project activities? Who will manage expenses and maintain a budget? Who will maintain the digital design notebook? Who will keep meeting notes? Do roles need to be assigned to each group member (eg. Chief Operations Officer, Budget Officer, Chief Documenter, etc.)
Stakeholders
Who are all of the stakeholders for this project and what are their expectations? Examples may include the clinical mentor, the patients, the department of biomedical engineering, the advisor(s), etc.
Team Operations
Communication: What tool(s) will the team use to communicate with each other (eg. Slack, WhatsApp, SMS)? How will documents and pictures be shared?
Documentation: How are documents, images, and text to be uploaded onto the digital design notebook? Are the documents to be sent to one member of the team or is each member of the team expected to upload relevant documents to the appropriate section of the digital design notebook?
Team Meetings: Are there weekly team meetings? Or mandatory meetings twice per week? If so, when? What are some rules for team meetings? (Example rule: after each meeting with the advisor or clinical mentor, the team will have a short team-only meeting to discuss the meeting and next steps.)
Team Work Hours: Are their expectations or guidelines about when team members will be expected to work on project work? All hours of the day? Every day of the week? When will team members be unavailable to work? Friday afternoon? Sunday morning?
Decision Making: How will the team make decisions? By consensus? By majority vote? What happens if the team cannot agree? Do they meet with their advisor or clinical mentor?
Assigning Tasks: Should team members volunteer for tasks and assignments or wait to be nominated?
Performance: How will each team member asses his/her self-performance, the performance of his/her peers, and the performance of the team? What is the plan if a member of the team in not performing his/her duties as a team member?
Contingency Plans: What will the team do if a member is unable to accomplish his/her team role (eg. due to illness, death in the family, hardship, etc.)?
Team Expenses: How will decisions be made about how/when materials will be purchased? Will receipts be documented and submitted on to the digital design notebook?