Working Agreements in action
These software developers discuss their working agreements on Zoom and use Trello to capture input.
A remote campaign team brainstorms and votes for which working agreements they will commit to and captures input in Confluence.
A fundraising team’s completed Working Agreements Play.
What you'll need
Remote
Digital collaboration tool (see templates)
Digital collaboration tool (see templates)
In-person
Meeting space
Whiteboard or large sheet of paper
Markers
Markers
Sticky notes
Optional templates
ATLASSIAN TEMPLATES
This Play works best with the CheckOps feature in Compass (see how to get your team started with CheckOps). If you haven’t yet started with Compass, you can still start tracking your team’s health today in Trello.
Instructions for running this Play
This Play is designed for teams who develop, deliver, and run software.
1. Prep 5 MIN
For remote teams, start by creating a collaboration document such as a Trello board or Confluence page. You can use a template provided if you’d like or create one of your own.
For in-person teams, find a whiteboard or large paper and set out sticky notes and markers in a meeting room.
On the shared document, whiteboard or paper, create three columns or spaces and label the first “Brainstorm,” the second “Working Agreements” and the third “Parking Lot”.
TIP: KEY DEVOPS METRICS
We recommend teams always measure the following metrics:
- Lead time for changes
- Change failure rate
- Deployment frequency
- Mean time to recovery
2. Set the stage 5 MIN
Open the meeting by explaining to the team that as a group you’re creating a set of behavioral agreements to guide how to work together. Ask the team to:
- Keep an open, curious mind
- Practice active listening and encourage everyone to contribute
- Avoid interrupting or dominating the conversation
3. Reflect 5 MIN
Introduce a moment of quiet reflection by asking attendees the following questions:
- What is important to us as a team? What behaviors can we agree to as a team?
- Think of teams that work together well. What do those teams do that we could adopt?
- What can we do on this team to avoid past mistakes from other teams?
Ask everyone to jot down their responses privately.
TIP: ACT, DON’T REACT
When your team is responsible for meeting operational objectives or development goals, it can be easy to fall into a trap of being reactive. Whether it’s reliability, delivery speed, or code quality, the data-driven approach that CheckOps promotes should enable your team to meet your DevOps goals, enhance the developer experience, and improve continuously.
Follow-up
Iteration
Revisit your team’s working agreements periodically, especially when the team or work changes, or an agreement can no longer be upheld.
Go through and vote to keep or change existing agreements. Then have team members brainstorm, propose, and vote on adding any additional agreements.
If an agreement can’t be upheld, discuss what might be getting in the way.
Variations
Starter questions
Come prepared with additional questions to get the team thinking. Examples include:
- What are our working hours?
- What’s our preferred way to get in touch with each other?
- How soon should we respond?
- What are some guidelines for successful meetings?
- Think about the best team you’ve ever been on. What was that team like?
- Think of the team that struggled. What happened on that team?
- What team behaviors do we want to be known for?
Delivery types | Possible objectives |
|---|---|
Microservice |
|
On-call team |
|
Software delivery |
|
Mobile application |
|
From our team, to yours
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