Establish roles

- Whether you're a newly minted team or you've been working together for years, there's likely room for improvement in the ways you communicate and collaborate. By giving everyone on the team defined roles and responsibilities, you can better coordinate and avoid duplicate efforts and missed opportunities. Some key collaboration process roles to consider are the meeting convener, recorder, and monitor. Depending on the nature of your team, each of these roles can be subdivided into more specific roles for your team, and these don't necessarily need to be aligned with your functional roles in the organization. Think of these as separate working titles for your specific team. The convener is a role the team leader often takes at least partially, especially if he or she is accountable for the final outcome of the team's efforts. Convening includes everything from determining whether or not a meeting is needed, to ensuring the agenda is developed and shared, to scheduling the actual meeting time and place. The recorder is responsible for keeping detailed notes on the discussion that takes place during the meeting. Notes should include a list of the participants, a summary of the discussion associated with each agenda item, and a list of the next steps. Any followup items should have names associated with them, so that it's clear who will be acting on whatever next steps you've discussed. Shortly after each meeting, this person should send a copy of the minutes to the team and give participants an opportunity to clarify or add to the document as needed. The action items from the minutes are often a topic for the agenda of the next team meeting. A monitor will help the group stick to the agenda items and keep the discussion within the time allotted. Keeping groups focused, particularly if you're meeting virtually, can be extremely challenging. It's really easy to get off topic. This person should feel comfortable interrupting the discussion if it goes off in a tangential direction. When this happens, the monitor may ask the recorder to note that this topic needs to be an agenda item for a future meeting. Some teams divide out these roles and keep them the same for every meeting. Others swap roles on a regular basis to make sure this important labor is evenly distributed throughout the team. However you choose to assign responsibilities, having defined roles will help you keep your team meetings focused and meaningful. If your team is operating without assigned process roles, add this to your next meeting agenda.