# How to run a team working agreement workshop and why AI facilitation helps _A practical 70-minute workshop for agreeing how a team communicates, makes decisions and handles the everyday moments where good intentions are not quite enough._ Every team has ways of working, whether it has agreed them or merely discovered them by collision. Messages are answered at some unstated speed, decisions happen in certain rooms, and meetings begin either on time or after the usual archaeological search for the agenda. A team working agreement makes those expectations visible and negotiable. The useful version is not a list of noble nouns such as respect, trust and excellence. Few colleagues arrive hoping for disrespect and mediocrity. A good agreement describes observable behaviour: where urgent requests go, how dissent is recorded, when a decision is final, and what people can expect when work is blocked. ## Prepare a decision the team can use Use this workshop when a team is forming, gaining new members, changing its operating rhythm or repeatedly rubbing against the same ambiguity. Invite the people who must live with the agreement, usually 3 to 12 participants. If a manager has non-negotiable constraints, state them before the session rather than allowing everyone to negotiate enthusiastically around a locked door. Ask participants to notice recent moments when collaboration worked well or became harder than necessary. Concrete examples produce better norms than abstract preferences. Set the outcome clearly: a short working agreement draft, with a decision state and one small habit to try in the next cycle. ## 1. Collect expectations with Round Robin Allow 25 minutes. Ask each participant in turn for one specific expectation about communication, decisions or collaboration. Follow with an example or refinement where needed. Round Robin prevents the first confident speaker from setting the entire menu, but do not mistake equal turns for useful contributions. Keep asking what the proposed norm would look like on an ordinary Tuesday. > If a request needs an answer today, put it in the delivery channel and name the person you need. Everything else can wait for the next working day. > — An observable communication agreement Collect input independently before opening discussion where possible. People who need thinking time, newer colleagues and those less comfortable contradicting authority then contribute before the room develops a preferred answer. Include norms worth protecting as well as frustrations to repair. ## 2. Examine trade-offs through Democratic Discussion Use the next 25 minutes to test the collected expectations. Ask what problem each proposal solves, what it costs and when it might fail. A rule that every decision needs unanimous agreement may sound inclusive until the team imagines using it under time pressure. A rule that one person always decides may be quick but needs a clear route for challenge. - What behaviour would somebody actually observe? - Which situations does this cover, and which does it not? - What trade-off are we accepting? - How can somebody raise an exception or disagreement? - What evidence would tell us the agreement is helping? The aim is informed convergence, not a suspiciously smooth conversation. Record objections and conditions rather than sanding them away. If the team cannot resolve an item, mark it unresolved and name the next decision needed. Honest incompleteness is more useful than decorative consensus. ## 3. Organise the proposals with Theme Sort Spend 15 minutes grouping related items and naming each theme in plain language. Communication channels, meeting behaviour, decision rights, focus time and handling conflict are common groups, but let the team’s material determine the structure. Keep important outliers visible rather than forcing them into a cluster because the board looks tidier that way. Rewrite duplicates into a candidate agreement without losing meaningful differences. Read the themes back and check whether people recognise their contributions. This is the transition from a collection of individual wishes to a set of choices the team can judge together. ## 4. Choose agreements using a Blind Vote Use the final 5 minutes to vote privately on which agreements would most improve everyday collaboration. Reveal votes together. Blind voting limits anchoring and gives quieter voices an unborrowed opinion, though it does not magically settle genuine conflict. Treat the result as decision information, then state whether the leading agreements are decided, recommended or still unresolved. Close with a compact draft written as behaviours, the rationale behind important choices and a review date. Choose one concrete improvement to a ritual or shared habit for the next cycle. A working agreement should be inspected after real use, not framed like a constitution and forgotten beside the holiday calendar. ## Why AI facilitation changes this workshop This workshop looks simple on paper, yet somebody must collect input from several participants, balance turns, protect the timeboxes, summarise trade-offs, preserve dissent, move material between exercises and run the vote. Usually that somebody is the diligent organiser, who then contributes with half an attention span while also operating the room. Clarvelo is the facilitator, not an assistant whispering tips to a human chair. It introduces Round Robin, gathers each person’s contribution, guides Democratic Discussion, synthesises the material for Theme Sort, manages the transitions and conducts the Blind Vote. The organiser gets to describe their own needs, question a proposal and vote alongside everybody else. ### Reliable process without a routine consultant bill A skilled external facilitator is valuable when trust is damaged, power is being contested or the consequences are unusually high. Few teams have a consultant budget for every new starter, reshuffle or recurring collaboration snag. Clarvelo makes reliable process facilitation practical for the ordinary occasions that still shape how work feels every day. AI also changes whose input survives. Multi-participant collection captures views before discussion rewards speed and seniority. Structured synthesis can show repeated themes while retaining awkward outliers. Consistent timeboxing stops an early debate consuming the selection stage, and the final output connects chosen norms to observable behaviour, rationale and follow-up rather than leaving behind a cheerful cloud of digital notes. The team still owns every agreement. Clarvelo should not invent harmony, decide what a colleague really meant or erase a minority concern. Its role is to run a dependable route from individual expectations to discussed trade-offs and explicit choices. That is enough to make many routine team conversations markedly better. ## A practical 70-minute agenda - 25 minutes: Round Robin for concrete norms and examples - 25 minutes: Democratic Discussion of evidence, objections and trade-offs - 15 minutes: Theme Sort with plain-language labels and visible outliers - 5 minutes: Blind Vote on the agreements that would most improve collaboration If time becomes tight, reduce the number of proposals under discussion rather than losing the vote and close. The point is not to document every conceivable interaction. It is to produce a small agreement the team can remember, use and revise. ## Let everyone take part in the agreement Clarvelo’s [Team Working Agreement](/workshops/team-working-agreement) runs the complete 70-minute sequence for 3 to 12 people. If your team needs clearer everyday expectations, [run the AI-facilitated workshop](/workshops/team-working-agreement) and let the organiser have their seat back. --- Written by Joe Corcoran for [Clarvelo](https://clarvelo.com). Clarvelo is an AI facilitator that guides teams through retrospectives, decision making, problem solving, prioritization and 40+ workshop formats. [Read more on the Clarvelo blog](https://clarvelo.com/blog) or [try the live AI-facilitated workshops](https://clarvelo.com).