Team Charter / Social Contract / Working Agreement

Ritesh Chopade
Dec 16, 2021
4 min read

Updated: Dec 16, 2021

If you haven't heard about Social contract before Don't Worry; there are so many people out there who have not heard about it or not aware of it [ Agile Coaches are also not exception to it :) ]. I will try to share all the knowledge and information around this topic so that you will be prepared to go back and build one with your teams.

Today we will learn below points:

What is Social contract?

Why to create Social Contract?

Who should create Social Contract?

When to create and can be edited once created?

What are the Advantages of social contract?

Template cum Example.

#SocialContract or #Workingagreement

WHAT

What is Social Contract for Agile Teams?

Don't get scared with word contract or agreement. Though these are words related to legal domain but in Agile these are used with social context. In Agile teams we have vision to become highly performing cross functional & self organized teams. I have purposely highlighted Team word here. Reason is very simple; Team is the foundation of Agile & its core values & principles.

Agile teams are supposed to be self organized where everyone in the team is equal, everyone's ideas matter, everyone contribute and all feel heard. This can reality when team members work together and setup ground rules for the team. This is where social contracts comes into picture.

Social Contracts are also known as Working Agreement. This allows team to collaboratively discuss, define & agree on acceptable, negotiable and non negotiable behaviors within the team & adheres.

Real life Example:

In our house there is some unsaid working agreement between family members like every member of house will keep their Shoes in shoe rack only. Every family member follows it without any debate :) And we teach the same thing to our babies as they grow up in house.

Social contract is just on the similar lines. Just instead of unsaid rules we explicitly discuss & document hygiene rules for team member to follow.

WHY

Why to create Social Contract?

In complex agile execution environment, it is very important that team try to become self organized team. While doing this they need to become bit of disciplined and define their ground rule to describe how team members will work together and behave in team. Every team is unique and their team member too; every person is having different personalities and nature. Some might be introvert some maybe extrovert. So it is very important to create sense of ownership, shared understanding and commitment within the team. When team start creating their own guidelines and standards for way of working they will own it and committed to follow it.

Social contract is also one of the way to create Trust & Transparency in the team. This also gives team a sense of belongingness. This also create a safe and conflict free environment within the team and any deviation can be easily dealt with by just pointing to "Social Contract".

WHO

Who should create Social Contract?

In Agile its always One Team culture. It's a social agreement of team from the team. So its important entire team participate & contributes in building this agreement. This is why they start becoming self organized team in real sense. When team start creating their own guidelines and standards for way of working they will own it & commit to follow it.

Agile Coach / Scrum Master can facilitate the meeting & oversee the process for fairness.

WHEN

When to create?

Ideally when agile team is formed they should create social contract. However it is not hard code rule as agile team constantly grow and continuously improve over the period of time. So there is no specific period as such for creating Social contract if there is no one yet get one created :)

Try to schedule meeting at such times when people are fresh & energetic to participate in discussion. Something like start of sprint and morning or afternoon times are considered better. Try to avoid times like end of sprint where everyone is busy in completing their work, Friday evenings where people are in party mood or Monday's where people are still in weekend party hangovers.

Can be edited once created?

This is a living document in team. There is no restrictions on updating it. In fact it will evolve as team keep constantly grow and continuously grow over the time. So whenever feel that they need to retrospect the social contract they can do it in retrospective meetings or do adhoc meeting to discuss and update. The only caution is any update should be made with entire team consensus.

There will be always new team members joining in team so anyone team members should give them a walkthrough of this document.