These agreements have spared me a lot of grief, so I shared below some tips on how to create one that works for your agile team. I also added three examples of clauses that I used for my teams that you could use. You can use the first few minutes of the meeting to draw up a short list of work agreements that only apply to that event. This approach helps all participants achieve the same way of thinking and helps you as a moderator manage the event smoothly and with clear expectations. The ScrumMaster is the custodian of employment contracts, but the whole team has a responsibility to question if someone breaks the agreement. As the work agreements have been agreed by the team, the perception of personal attacks and confrontations is eliminated. In the spirit of transparency and continuous improvement, team members should review employment contracts from time to time and ask, “Should they be updated?” Make sure the rules of the labor agreement are not dictated by senior management – only your team really knows what it needs, so outside influence should be ruled out. To keep the debate on track, use facilitation techniques such as fist of five to reach consensus on all labour agreements. The main advantage of labour agreements is their applicability. Since everyone has agreed to abide by the rules, the application of these rules becomes less difficult in the event of an infringement. Faced with friction between some members of the team, he opted for a 1-2-4 model[3] to discuss possible agreements. This model aims to ensure that everyone has a voice on them: by defining and agreeing the behaviours expected for all team members, we are able to reduce behavioral problems.

Good practices promoted by the agreement eventually become habits that move the team forward, while bad habits are eliminated. It is easy to get into projects with new teams, but work agreements create the kind of solid foundation necessary for effective cooperation, especially between people with different backgrounds, assumptions and experiences.