Mgr Team Charter

---
name: mgr-team-charter
description: Drafts a one-page team charter that states the team's purpose, scope, who it serves, roles and decision rights, with a review date. Use for "run mgr-team-charter", "write a team charter", "what is my team for", "nobody knows what good looks like", "define our team's scope", "who decides what on my team", "team purpose statement", "roles and responsibilities for my team", part of the AI for Managers Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Team Charter

## When To Use
Nobody wrote down what good looks like, so the answers live in your head and people work hard on the wrong priorities. Use it when you take over a team, when the team's remit shifts, or when the same "is this ours?" argument keeps coming back. It answers one question: why does this team exist, and what is it for?

## When Not To Use
If the question is how the team works day to day (channels, hours, response times), run Working Agreements instead. If you need to know who owns each task or deliverable, the RACI Matrix fits better; the charter stays at the level of roles.

## Inputs
- What you already have (a remit from your own manager, a strategy note, a team page), plus the team's roles and what each actually spends time on
- Who asks the team for work, and the requests you turn down or should
If you have none of this, I start from the team's name, its roles and one sentence on what it delivers, and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
A team charter is common manager practice with no single originator, so it is described here generically. It targets what Google re:Work, "Understand team effectiveness", calls structure and clarity: people know their roles, goals and plans. The roles section follows the idea behind the Atlassian Team Playbook Roles and Responsibilities play: name what each role owns and surface the work nobody owns. The failure it prevents is the charter as a poster: a purpose sentence so broad that every request fits, so nothing ever gets turned away.

## Workflow
1. Ask at most three questions: what would the team stop doing if it disappeared tomorrow, which request did you last turn down or wish you had, and which decisions you currently make alone that you would hand to the team.
2. Purpose: write why the team exists in one sentence, naming who benefits and what changes for them. Test it: if a neighbouring team could sign the same sentence, it is too broad; tighten it.
3. Scope: list what is in and, just as long, what is explicitly out. Every "out" item names where that work goes instead, or is marked "owner unknown" for you to raise upward.
4. Who we serve and goals: each group the team works for, what it needs and how it asks; real requesters only. Link the current OKRs rather than restating them; if none exist, write "to be set" and send the team to Team OKRs.
5. Roles: for each role, its main responsibilities; where two roles overlap, name a primary owner; list unowned work separately. Roles, not people: the charter survives someone leaving.
6. Decision rights: which decisions the team makes itself, which it makes after consulting you, which go up. Set a review date with the team; the team reads the draft and changes it before it is final.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Team Charter
[Team name] | Draft [date] | Review [date the team sets] | Goals: [link to Team OKRs, or "to be set"]
## Purpose
[One sentence: who benefits and what changes for them]
## Scope
| In scope | Out of scope | Where out-of-scope work goes |
|---|---|---|
| [work] | [work] | [team or "owner unknown"] |
## Who we serve
| Group | What they need from us | How they ask |
|---|---|---|
| [group] | [need] | [channel] |
## Roles
| Role | Main responsibilities | Primary owner where roles overlap |
|---|---|---|
| [role] | [responsibilities] | [role] |
Unowned work: [list]
## Decision rights
| Decision | Team decides | Team decides after consulting [manager] | Goes up to [name] |
|---|---|---|---|
| [decision] | [x] | [ ] | [ ] |
## Decision
[name] confirms the charter with the team and raises unowned work with [name] by [date].
```

## Done When
- The purpose sentence could not be signed by a neighbouring team.
- Every out-of-scope item says where the work goes, or is flagged "owner unknown".
- Unowned work is listed, not quietly spread across roles.
- Decision rights name at least one decision the team makes without you, a review date is set, and the team has edited the draft.

## Quality Bar
- One page; if it needs a second, the scope is not yet decided. Roles are written as roles, never as judgements of the people in them.
- Goals are linked, not copied, so the charter does not go stale each quarter.
- No invented remit: anything I could not find in your inputs is marked [to confirm].
- The team writes the final version with you; a charter handed down is a poster.

## Next
Run mgr-team-okrs (Team OKRs) to set the goals the charter points to.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).