Crafting A Design Team Charter

(Originally published 3 Dec 2020; revised 1 Jun 2025; scheduled for additional revision)

This year, I’ve helped 5 design teams draft their charter. At the outset of this work is a series of 4 2-hour group sessions (it used to be a one-day workshop in a conference room) to define different aspects of the team. Having done it a bunch now, I’ve developed a fairly strong agenda for conducting these sessions. Below I have shared the entire agenda. Feel free to use it for your team!

Why draft a charter?

As design teams grow, they often realize that there’s a set of assumptions about they work they do, assumptions put on them by people outside design. These assumptions end up constraining the potential of the design team, and they find themselves focused on production when there is so much more they could offer.

I believe these charter projects have proven popular because they provide a platform for a design team to define itself, to set its own course and agenda. They help teams build confidence taking control of the kind of work they do, and how they do it. This empowerment, in turn, makes the teams more effective, as they feel greater connection to their work.