Purpose
Toolkit to give your initiative the structure and leadership needed through thoughtful consideration of team roles and responsibilities
Who this is for
When to use
Introduction
Why is this toolkit important?
Effective initiatives come from effective teams. Especially in a complex academic environment, where multiple stakeholders are involved and priorities frequently shift, effective team management becomes essential. This toolkit provides a structured approach to assembling and organizing your team, setting clear expectations and responsibilities, plan for competing demands, and monitoring progress, which helps ensure that everyone is aligned and working toward common goals. It also facilitates better communication and coordination among team members, reducing misunderstandings and delays.
Key actions
How to use this toolkit
The Team Management Toolkit is designed to enhance project organization and effectiveness by providing structured approaches for defining team roles, managing workstreams, and setting expectations. Most of the components of this toolkit should be used in the planning phase or at the beginning of your student success initiative. The tool also includes a guide to monitor and adjust workstreams and capacity throughout the project.
Refer to other elements of your Project Charter such as your initiative’s scope, timeline, outcomes, and stakeholders to determine the necessary workload and skills for successful completion.
Remember: Consider the scope of your initiative, projected timeline, intended outcomes, and all involved stakeholders to determine the workload and skills required to complete the initiative successfully.
Tools overview
There are 3 tools in this toolkit. They can be used together or individually and are facilitated by the project lead.
Related
Next steps
Roles & Workstreams Guide
Why is this tool important?
Crafting an effective team at the start of an initiative takes consideration. This guide highlights several key considerations for the team launch phase.
Preliminary considerations for the team lead:
Determining Team Roles & Responsibilities
What roles or functions does this initiative require? Not all projects will have one person per role; think of these as functions to be done/hats to be worn by team members to facilitate the project.
Potential roles
Project Workstreams
What are the workstreams, and do they align with the roles? Utilize the activity below to consider team roles along with workstreams as you assemble the team.
Allocating Roles
You may complete this activity in consultation with the team by answering the prompts in a worksheet format, and/or creating a responsibility assignment matrix for the team and assign roles.
The RACI structure linked here is just one possible way to organize this overview and might require adjustments to your specific needs.
While business models like the RACI-matrix can be useful, they often don’t fully capture the complex organisational structures and alignment processes of higher ed institutions.
Your primary goal is to map responsibilities and establish clear decision pathways for your initiative. Focus on balancing fitting your project to a chart with creating a chart that fits your project.
Guiding Questions
Consulted
Whose responsibility is it to manage expert outreach?
What types of expertise might be needed? Who provides specific expertise?
Informed
Whose responsibility is it to manage stakeholder communications?
Who needs status updates and how should they be delivered? Whose responsibility is it to manage this?
Represented
Whose responsibility is it to ensure the impact group is represented?
How are you representing the voice of the impacted (Typically students/specific student groups)? Whose responsibility is it to ensure this?
Template – Roles & Workstreams Chart
Create and customize a chart according to the roles and workstreams you’ve determined for the project, using the legend below to fill in each role’s responsibilities, ensuring that they are clearly documented and understood by all team members.
Depending on the complexity of the initiative and the number of stakeholders, you might choose to structure your chart by mapping workstreams against roles (the more common approach) or by mapping workstreams against responsibilities. While the latter is less common, it can provide a clearer overview for initiatives that involve many stakeholders at specific milestones rather than throughout the initiative.
–
Team lead
Team member A
Team member B
Stakeholder 1 (Leaders)
Stakeholder 2
(Data person)
Workstream 1
A, I, Rep
R
R
I
–
Workstream 2
e.g. Assessment and Evaluation
A, I, Rep
–
R
I
C, I
Workstream 3
e.g. Student Voice & Feedback
I
R, Rep
I
I
C, I
Workstream 4
e.g. Liaison to other teams
R, A, I
R, I
I
A, C
–
R
A
C
I
Rep
Responsible
for doing
Makes final decisions & is accountable for results
Consults with expertise before decisions
Needs information
on progress
Represents impact group
Team Charter Template
Why is this tool important?
The team charter provides a venue for clearly spelling out team principles, expectations, communication norms, meeting protocols and other baseline elements. Explicitly recording these elements is primarily a means for having open and clear communication of them across the team.
Once you have assembled your team, ensure the activity below is completed collaboratively. As the project lead, you can either facilitate the session yourself or bring in a third-party facilitator to guide the team.
Having a third-party guide this activity can help ensure that all voices are heard and that the process remains neutral. This can be particularly beneficial if you anticipate conflicts or disagreements over the guiding questions.
Your team may have varying communication styles and preferences. Remain adaptable to these differences rather than forcing everyone into a single mold. Embracing diverse perspectives can unlock significant potential and creativity within the team.
Guiding Questions
General rules
Which behaviors and practices does the team agree to uphold?
Accountability
What does accountability look like to our team?
How will we promote and ensure equity in our team?
Inclusion
Whose voices are not represented in the project team?
How will we mitigate this through stakeholder engagement?
What are the rules of engagement?
This includes who calls them, meeting format, frequency, and expectations for participation.
This includes both format and communication styles.
How should it be communicated? What will trigger member removal?
Examples include fostering investment via recognition/feedback loops (i.e., demonstrating that individual team members’ efforts are shared within the team, upwards, and with the community). This includes learning and growth goals – experience and responsibility rewards.
Template
Project Title
Answer
Answer
Answer
Answer
Answer
Project Workstream & Workload Tracker
Why is this tool important?
Workstream and workload tracking is important at the outset to anticipate and plan for expected periods of high and low capacity in the initiative timeline. As the initiative progresses, it provides a means to highlight and communicate workload changes, perhaps unanticipated.
With the team, illustrate the expected workload intensity at the outset of the initiative. Periodically update this document to capture/track team members across the Project Timeline and indicate the degree of progress and challenges towards completion of tasks within each workstream.
Template
Below is a filled in example for your reference.
–
Status
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Team member 1
Workstream 1
In progress
–
–
–
–
Workstream 2
In progress
–
–
–
–
Workstream 3
In progress
–
–
–
–
Team member 2
Workstream 4
Not started
–
–
–
–
Workstream 5
In progress
–
–
–
–
Workstream 6
Completed
–
–
–
–
Team member 3
Workstream 7
Not started
–
–
–
–
Workstream 8
Not started
–
–
–
–
Workstream 9
Not started
–
–
–
–
Identify and track when team members’ workloads become heavy so that the project manager (and team) can see the ebb and flow of responsibility across the project timeline, manage workflow, protect against burnout, and allocate support as needed.
No workload
Light workload
Heavy workload
Review the anticipated timeline and workload with each team member, and ask them to flag any potential conflicts with their other responsibilities outside of this project. This helps to anticipate crunch times and adjust your Project Timeline as needed.
