When you’re immersed in the flurry of day-to-day tasks, it can be difficult to remember your overarching goals for your practice.

A team charter acts as a reminder of those goals and provides ground rules to motivate your team to stay focused on them.

Rosemary Smyth, founder of Rosemary Smyth and Associates in Victoria, provides five recommendations to help you create and get the most out of your team charter:

1. Identify goals
Your team charter should identify specific objectives and the way you intend to accomplish them. The big question is, what is the current goal of your practice?

Your goal, for example, could be to double your assets under management over the next year or to develop a new area of specialization and promote that to your clients.

2. Define roles
This document should outline the role of each team member in contributing to your goal. If you’re looking to develop a new area of expertise, your part could be to obtain the designation relevant to that specialty. Your sales assistant might be responsible for identifying the clients who would benefit most from this new expertise while your marketing assistant would incorporate details of this new service into your quarterly newsletter and other communications.

3. Set the rules
Include in your charter the ground rules that will help produce a positive working environment. When you and your team are not distracted by annoyances and bad habits, achieving your goals will be easier.

Some important issues to consider are communication boundaries and conflict resolution, Smyth says.

For example, how do your team members feel about being contacted after they have left the office? They may accept phone calls or texts on weeknights but feel that weekends are off limits.

4. Make it a living document
Update your charter every time there is a significant change to your practice, Smyth says, such as moving to a new office or hiring a new team member.

You might need to revise your charter as a result of a lesson learned from a situation that did not work out well, such as giving one team member too much responsibility. In that case, you might choose to spread out some of those duties or hire a new team member.

When you’re looking to update this document, invite your team members to suggest items they would like it to include. This participation gives them an opportunity to think of solutions for problems, Smyth says.

Team-building events and retreats offer a good opportunity to review your charter, when you are free from the distractions of day-to-day business.

5. Let your charter guide your decisions
Once your charter is in place, it contains your major goals and priorities and, therefore, should play a part in the choices you make.

For example, you might refer to your charter when hiring a new team member.

“It can help identify [whether] new people are going to be a good fit,” Smyth says.

If you receive a resumé that includes many of the key words found in your charter, you have a good indication that you should interview that job applicant.