Making Working Agreements in your Team

9 Examples for more calm and focus

You want to finalist a proposal, but you keep receiving messages. A colleague expects an answer within ten minutes. Another one sends the same question via email. Meanwhile, a meeting starts that you don’t quite know why you are attending. By the end of the day, you have responded a lot, but that proposal is still sitting there.

Does this sound familiar? Then take a look at the agreements within your team. Often, everyone has their own idea about availability, priorities, and collaboration. You only notice this when those expectations clash. Making working agreements within your team helps to articulate those expectations and translate them into concrete behavior.

In this blog, you will find nine examples of working agreements that you can adapt to your situation. You will also learn how to choose together what is necessary and prevent the agreements from disappearing after just one meeting.

What are the working agreements in a team?

Work agreements are joint agreements regarding how you organize your daily work. Think of when to respond to a message, how to hand over tasks, and when you are allowed to interrupt someone. They clarify what colleagues can expect from each other.

A goal describes what you want to achieve. A work agreement describes how you will collaborate to achieve it. ‘We submit our reports on time’ is a goal. ‘The owner shares the draft version two working days before the deadline’ is a work agreement.

Good agreements are recognizable in practice. You can see whether you are applying them. ‘We communicate better’ is too vague for that. ‘We record decisions in the joint project overview after the meeting’ does provide direction. In particular, discuss the situations that regularly cause confusion or extra work for you.

Nine examples of work agreements for more peace and focus

The times and timeframes below are examples. Choose what suits your work, staffing, and agreements with clients. A service team has different capabilities than a team that primarily performs analyses.

1. Agree on which channel you will use for what

If questions come in simultaneously via email, chat, and separate conversations, everyone has to search in different places. Therefore, choose a fixed location for each type of message.

Example agreement: We ask short coordination questions in the team chat. We post substantive project questions with the relevant task. We use email for external communication. In case of emergency, we call the designated contact person.’

Also record where the final answer ends up. A decision made by phone, for example, subsequently belongs to the project task. This way, colleagues can retrieve it without knowing the entire conversation.

Practical tip: discuss three recent messages. Through which channel should they have gone according to the new agreement? This will quickly help you discover whether your structure is clear enough.

2. Make expectations regarding response times clear

Receiving a message does not automatically mean you have to answer it immediately. However, that expectation can arise unknowingly, for example, when a manager always responds immediately.

Example agreement: We respond to internal emails within two of our own working days at the latest. We check the team chat at appropriate times during our workday. Anyone who needs an answer sooner should state a specific desired timeframe and the reason.’

Distinguish between an acknowledgment of receipt and a substantive response. You can let the reader know when you will get back to them without immediately resolving the issue. Take part-time working days and absences into account.

Practical tip: explicitly state that a message sent outside of someone’s working hours can wait until the next workday. The sender chooses when to write; your agreement determines when a response is expected.

3. Protect time to work undisturbed

A focus block only works if colleagues know what it means. Is ‘focused work’ in your calendar, but are you still getting called with general questions? Then there is no shared agreement regarding interruptions.

Example agreement: On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do not schedule internal meetings between 9:00 and 11:00. Anyone with a focus block should turn off notifications. Regular questions should wait until after that. The colleague on duty handles urgent customer inquiries.

If you need to be continuously available, choose different blocks per person. Arrange the staffing first, so that rest for one person does not become an extra burden for the other.

Practical tip: start with one protected block per week. After two weeks, ask if they actually managed to keep working and what was still disrupting the block.

4. Determine together what is truly urgent

Could you take a look at this? says little about the urgency. When everything is urgent, colleagues constantly have to guess for themselves what they can put on hold.

Example agreement: Something is urgent if waiting until the next agreed contact moment has immediate serious consequences, for example because a critical service is suspended. The sender states the problem, the consequences of waiting, and the necessary decision. In case of an emergency, we call the colleague on duty.

Discuss situations familiar from your own work. A presentation for next week usually requires a different approach than a technical issue that prevents customers from proceeding right now. Also, schedule a replacement in case the primary contact person is unavailable.

Practical tip: review urgent requests during the team meeting. Was immediate action necessary, or can you schedule earlier next time?

5. Meet with a clear goal and a concrete outcome

A recurring meeting easily remains on the agenda, even if the purpose has changed. Therefore, agree on when a meeting is necessary and what participants need to know in advance.

Example agreement: The organizer states the objective, discussion points, and desired outcome in the invitation. Participants receive documents no later than one working day in advance. We conclude with decisions, actions, owners, and deadlines in the joint overview.’

For each topic, ask who is truly needed. A colleague who only needs to stay informed can read the decision later. If preparation is lacking, the organizer determines whether the meeting can still take place effectively.

Practical tip: add one weekly meeting. Can some of the updates be provided in writing beforehand? Use the time freed up for questions that require joint coordination.

6. Record who is responsible for a task

We’ll take care of that’ sounds nice, but who does what afterwards? Without a clear owner, a task can be left undone or be carried out by two people at the same time.

Example agreement: Every joint task has one owner, an agreed result, and a deadline. The owner coordinates contributions and reports in a timely manner if the schedule is not feasible. In the event of absence, it is clear who takes over.

The owner therefore does not have to carry out everything themselves. They ensure that the current status remains clear and that assistance is needed. During the handover, make clear what has already been completed, what is still outstanding, and where the files are located.

Practical tip: review the action list at the end of a meeting. Can everyone identify who takes the next step without further explanation? If not, make the action more concrete before you wrap up.

7. Choose consciously what takes priority

When a new assignment comes in, existing work does not disappear on its own. Yet teams regularly say yes to something without discussing what shifts as a result.

Example agreement: On Monday, we determine the key team results for that week. In the event of a new urgent assignment, the responsible colleague discusses with the team leader which planned work will be shifted. We do not add a hard deadline without discussing its feasibility.

Also show which tasks are pending. This allows a client to see what a new choice entails. If two assignments require the same people, let the involved clients determine the order together with the decision-maker.

Practical tip: with every new request, ask the question: What will receive less time as a result? The answer clarifies whether the schedule still fits.

8. Agree on how to address each other

Good working agreements are sometimes forgotten as well. That is why it helps to discuss in advance how you will address them. Otherwise, irritation can build up while no one initiates the conversation.

Example agreement: If an agreement is not kept, we discuss this directly with the colleague involved. We mention what we observed, what the consequences were, and what we need. We also ask what was going on.

For example: The draft text arrived this morning, even though we agreed yesterday. As a result, I won’t be able to check it today. Could you let me know earlier in the future if the schedule shifts?’ That gives the other person something concrete to respond to.

Practical tip: managers apply the same agreement to themselves. Anyone who asks for feedback and acts on it shows that colleagues are allowed to discuss problems.

9. Keep information in one agreed place

A file in a personal folder, a decision in the chat, and a schedule in someone’s mailbox: finding things again and again takes time. Agree on where the current information is located.

Example agreement: We store project documents in the shared project folder. Our task overview contains the schedule, owners, and file references. We share links to the current version and assign decisions to the corresponding task.

Also determine who updates the overview. For confidential information, choose a location with appropriate access, so that findability goes hand in hand with careful handling of data.

Practical tip: have a colleague who is less involved in a project search for the latest version. Where they get stuck, your working method is not yet clear enough.

Making team agreements in five steps

Start with concrete bottlenecks

Have everyone write down two situations beforehand that take up unnecessary time or attention. Ask for examples from the past few weeks. ‘We have too many meetings’ is a starting point. ‘On Monday, I attend three meetings with the same updates’ provides more guidance for a solution.

Choose a small number of appointments

Discuss which bottlenecks cause the most hindrance and start with three agreements, for example. You do not have to adopt all nine examples of working agreements. Choose what helps you now and what the team has room to practice.

Write down visible behavior

Describe who does what, when, and where. Also note the most important exception. ‘We respect each other’s focus’ then becomes: ‘During a focus block, we send regular questions via the chat and only expect an answer afterwards.’ Ask each colleague if they can work with this and which objections still require attention.

Test the agreements in daily work

Agree on a trial period, for example four weeks. Keep the agreements on a single easily findable page and refer to them when a relevant situation arises. Also review them with new colleagues. Simply circulating a document is usually insufficient to teach a new way of working.

Discuss what works and adjust

Schedule the evaluation immediately. Which agreement do you use? Where is it not working and why? Sometimes this requires clearer wording, sometimes a different distribution of work. Look for concrete signals, such as interruptions during focus blocks or tasks without an owner. Use these to improve collaboration.

What if work agreements are not adhered to

First, investigate whether the arrangement is feasible. If one colleague handles all customer inquiries, it is logical that their own work will come under pressure. In that case, you need to adjust the staffing or task allocation.

Additionally, discuss whether people understand the agreement in the same way. ‘Responding quickly’ might mean an hour for one person and a workday for another. Make the expectation concrete and check if everyone is aware of it.

Is someone repeatedly ignoring a feasible agreement? Then discuss the pattern and the consequences in a separate meeting. Agree on what will change and when you will follow up on it. This way, the agreement retains its meaning for colleagues who do adhere to it.