Part of your group project proposal will include a team contract. This describes how you will operate as a team, and should address expectations about: attendance, preparation, division of the work, decision-making processes, what the group plans to do about leadership/roles, how disagreements will be handled, how group members will treat each other, and what actions the group will take if the terms of the contract are violated. You should revisit and revise the contract as needed throughout the semester.
The behaviors describing good teamwork and aspects of your group-authored contract will be transformed into the criteria members use to assess each other’s contributions. Making behaviors and working relationships explicit doesn’t guarantee group success, but it does make it much more likely!
You have a considerable amount of freedom for determining what goes into your Team Contract (and individual assessments). But there’s plenty of resources offering some suggestions for what to include. Things to consider (see http://faculty.wwu.edu/tyrank/MGMT313/TeamContract313.htm for source & more detail):
1. Preliminary information. This step develops the basic background information that will allow a group to function. You should share the necessary information with each other at your first meeting.
2. Guiding Principles. Guiding principles are a general code of conduct that you establish together. These principles are typically descriptions of behaviors and attitudes you feel members should respect and live by for the group to be successful. They become the basis of agreements for handling more specific issues such as conflict, dealing with non-performance, distributing rewards, etc. Each member should be willing to make a pledge to abide by these guiding principles by the time you finish your discussion.
3. Preliminary focus on purpose. What is the essential purpose of your team? What is your ultimate goal?
4. Dividing up the teamwork: Group Roles. How should we do role assignments? (rotate? fixed? voluntary? skill-based? random?)
5. Dividing up the task: The division of labor: How should you decide who does what? Skills? Time? Should work be divided into equal, measurable units or some way else?
6. Developing a team plan. Using the information collected in determining roles, responsibilities and division of labor, develop a detailed plan for accomplishing the team’s objectives for the next project deliverable (i.e., the group proposal).
7. Meeting Management. How frequent? How to schedule? Attendance? Attitude? Task focus? Decision-making? Conflict management?
8. Accountability Processes. Documentation? How often do we need to check up on actions? What checkpoints do we need?
9. Rewards and Punishments. How do we celebrate team success? How do we reward individual initiative and contribution? How do we handle non-performance and failure to meet commitments? How do we handle behavior which disrupts the functioning of the team? How will we process negative internal or external feedback?
10. Follow-Up. When will we next revisit revisions of our contract? How does a team member call attention to issues that arise that are not covered under the contract? What rules do we make for contract revision?