Social Contract

Social contracts set the ground rules on what is acceptable or expected behaviour, making it safe for everyone to participate. Essentially the agreement creates the norms of what is expected in the specific context of that team.

Theory

The biggest problem of living in the state of nature: there is no authority to enforce the law of nature. Because of this, people want to enter into civil society. People realize that they cannot live successfully in a state of nature. Cooperation among people is necessary to enjoy life.

People voluntarily give up some of their individual freedoms and enter into a community with other people in order to live a good life.

People create a social contract – an agreement to grant a limited amount of power to a government in exchange for some of their personal freedom so they can live together peacefully.

Good starting questions to ask to get the team thinking are:

• What do we value?

• What’s important?

• What would make this team powerful?

• What can we count on from one another?

• How will we know we have achieved this?

• What will it feel like?

It is important to make sure the team knows this is a safe space to speak up and everyone's voice will be heard. You don’t want someone too afraid to say what they really think and they go away disagreeing with most of the contract.

What are the key areas or topics we need to talk about to be effective as a team and work together in harmony?

Social contract topics

• Working from home

• Do not disturb and quiet time

• Communication

• Meetings

• Vacations

• Availability

• Active listening

• Safe place

• Workout time?

• Eating at the desk?

• Celebrations — birthdays

• Team lunch

Meetings

• Stand-ups at 9:00 am.

• Always create an agenda

• Be present for a core set of hours: 10 am to 4 pm

• If you don’t believe you can contribute to a meeting, let the organizer know and don’t attend

• Ensure all meetings have an agenda and that actions are recorded

• If you can’t attend or need to leave early from a meeting, notify the team beforehand

• Come prepared to meetings

• Be on time for Stand-Ups and meetings

• Mobile phones on silent

• Everyone has an equal voice and valuable contributions.

Communication

• Raise a problem as soon as you see it

• Face-to-face conversations over email, anytime

• Respect each other and understand differences in knowledge

• All team documents are to be shared

• There are no silly questions if you don’t understand, ask

• Share success stories

• Focus on the positives

• Don’t make assumptions

• Don’t interrupt and cut another person off while they are talking

• Listen when someone is talking, don’t interject

• We have zero tolerance for bullying.

• Communication in this order: Face to face, phone call, Instant Message, then email

• Publish phone numbers and open and share calendars

• Use Slack as the primary method of team communication.

Leader Contract

Inputs

A social contract can be formed or revisited at any time. It is generally created when the team is first formed and then regularly reviewed whenever a new member joins the team.

The retrospective is a good forum to utilise to create the Social Contract.

Each team members bring along their own ideas of their suggested team social norms.

Outputs

A published social contract, usually a one-pager that serves as the team's agreement with each other

Procedure

1. Together in a room, the whole team brainstorms the group rules they would like to see.

2. Depending on how many items are suggested, the group may group into themes and vote on a top 10 they would like to go forward with.

3. The social content is then placed in a prominent space online and/or on a physical wall near the team's co-location space.