Part4

Part 4 by Kristina Lawrence
The learning team charter is an important tool that can aid a leader in not only formalizing activities and protocols, but also it will become one of the key ingredients of a team’s success. Dana Brownlee stated “A team charter is a document that a team leader can use to facilitate discussion and consensus-building on the fundamentals that define a team, its goals, and how the team will function to best achieve them” (2012). Using this definition, a team charter provides the leader with a foundation to get the team thinking as a whole, including all members of the team in discussions, and allowing the leader to understand the areas of contention within the team.  
The process of creating a team charter gives the leader an idea where the issues in the team may arise which will allow him or her to remedy the challenge prior to it becoming a problem within the team as a whole.   The team charter calls for the team to put into writing their goals, tasks, consequences of not completing the assigned tasks, a plan if there is a conflict, and essentially their agreement to contribute to the tasks outlined so that the project can be successful. Therefore, the document makes each member of the team accountable for him or her completing their tasks, gives the team member a sense of belonging, which in turn hopefully will create a team devoted to the goal set-forth. Hence, engaging a team to complete a team charter directly contributes to the success of the team not only completing the goal/task, but it also will contribute directly to the successfulness of the teams functioning.
Reference
Brownlee, Dana. (2012). Team charter. Leadership Excellence, 29(10). Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1151716686?accountid=458