Team Charter: Roles and Responsibilities

Roles that are assumed rather than named cause confusion, resentment, and duplicated work. This charter closes Level 9 by making structural clarity explicit. You've built trust, navigated conflict, understood each other's styles, and practiced decision-making. Now you formalize who does what so the team can operate without constant negotiation.

Theory

Document responsibilities and decision-making scopes. Clear roles prevent friction. Review regularly whether the allocation still fits.

Roles and division of labor are the technical structures that must support social behavior in any socio-technical system. When responsibilities are assumed rather than named, ambiguity breeds conflict — people step on each other's territory or leave gaps that no one fills. The role analysis from Activity 34 and the decision-making experiments from Activity 35 give you the raw material for this charter: who owns what, who is consulted, who is informed. Revisit the document regularly, because teams change and what fit six months ago may no longer match your reality.