<aside> <img src="/icons/info-alternate_yellow.svg" alt="/icons/info-alternate_yellow.svg" width="40px" /> This page is part of The Toolbox by Danny Smith.

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Forming new teams can be a challenge in a remote environment – especially if the folks on the new team have never worked together before. Whenever a new team is established (see Formally Established Teams) I like to run a workshop – or series of workshops – to kick things off. The exact format of these will depend on the team and the work they’re going to do, but when I run them I like to start by focussing on three things first.

  1. Get mutual understanding of what we need from each other to do our best work.
  2. Understand our team vision and mission.
  3. Define our team principles, what they mean and how we use them to guide our daily decision-making.

<aside> 💡 If the team are all totally new to each other, it’s a good idea to run a few social calls (or meet up in person) beforehand, jus so everyone has met each other and feels comfortable. See Social Calls and Games for Remote Teams for more on this.

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The Team Forming Workshop 🎨

This format works best with small teams of 5-8. I tend to use Fundamental Workshopping Tools along with a simple FigJam board (see Intro to FigJam) to run these, and the format usually looks like this…

Opening (5-10 mins)