Starting a new team: what to decide before making templates

When starting a team, procedure documents and meeting templates are easy places to begin. They are useful, but people still need to know who handles a task and who can approve a decision. Agreeing on those basics first makes it easier to decide which documents you need.

The key idea

First agree on responsibilities and decisions. Then decide how to share information and which tools to use day to day. Each rule should help with a specific part of the work.

Decide who handles each task and who can make decisions

Who is responsible for each area, and what can they decide on their own? When these details are unclear, people have to stop and ask before moving forward. Include unexpected requests, reviews, and work that currently depends on one person when you discuss responsibilities.

Responsibilities and the situations that require another team’s input
Conditions that require review and the final decision-maker
Work allocation that accounts for difficulty and workload
Where information lives, who maintains it, and what may be shared externally

Agree on what each meeting is for

Decide where to share updates and record decisions. A progress check, a discussion about a problem, and a decision meeting may need different people. Give each meeting a purpose and an agenda, and agree on where its notes will go.

One-on-ones can cover questions about decisions, heavy workloads, and confusing rules as well as progress. These conversations can help you spot parts of the process that need to change.

Start with the documents you need now

Once responsibilities and communication are clear, create the procedures, checklists, and meeting notes you need. Keep the first versions simple and revise them when people get stuck using them.

Check whether people can find each document, whether it is up to date, and whether it helps them decide what to do. If nobody uses a field in a template, ask what it is there for.

Check whether people know how to proceed

These are useful questions to return to as the team grows. If people keep getting stuck in the same place, review the responsibility, rule, or information they need there.

People know what to do next
They know where to look when they are unsure
They know whom to consult and who decides
They understand what they can move forward independently

QA Notebook / Teams & process