Network of Teams

Before you run a Network of Teams Play, we recommend you establish your team poster. Running a Team Poster Play will define the team’s purpose and what success looks like. This helps your team understand what collaborators are needed to help you reach your goals.

Document the team’s strategic goal at the top of the shared template or whiteboard.

Set up a space for your internal team to connect and invite any external team members you’d like to have present for the Play.

For remote teams, create a digital collaboration space or utilize one of our pre-made templates. For in-person teams, you’ll need space with a whiteboard, sticky notes in various colors, and markers.

Start the Play with a team brainstorm. Identify the different teams in your network and classify them using two characteristics: type of team and level of influence.

Transfer that brainstorm to the template, shared document, or whiteboard. Under the appropriate team type, write the names of each team contributing to the goal.

Next, place the teams in their circles of influence. Remove duplicates and discuss which ring of influence the team should sit in. Try to have no more than five teams as Critical to Success.

Assign and document a relationship “owner” from the core team for each of these “critical to success” and “involved in success” teams. This person will champion a healthy relationship with this team by maintaining communication, giving updates, and consulting as needed. If you can’t find a natural fit for the owner, ownership can default to the team lead.

Optional: Stop here! If you’re a newly formed team or have a less complex network, this may be enough. If your team has a shared understanding of the network, what it will take to be successful, and where to focus your efforts, then you’re done. Congratulations!

If you’d like to continue, take a quick break and then regroup.

Discuss the type of relationship you have between your team and each team you’ve determined to be critical. We call this your “interaction strength.” Draw lines to indicate the interaction strengths with each team.

Interaction strength:

• Solid line: Systemic interactions are happening (for example, a recurring meeting or dedicated Slack channel).

• Dashed line: Interactions are employed ad hoc. Examples are reliance on a personal relationship and collaboration that is reactive (incident or issue-driven).

• Dotted line: This relationship requires new collaboration methods.

For more challenging network interactions, run the variation below with your relationship owners.

Reflect regularly on your network of teams and re-run the Play every six months to account for relationship changes and team evolution.