**Post updated Feb 2025**
In a recent talk that I gave at Agile testing days and Lean Agile Scotland called “Whole Team Responsibility”, I mentioned the team manual as a way of growing empathy in teams. Here is a quick write-up with a little more detail on how to use it.
Last year, the awesome Cassie Robinson published the user manual for me (it was on my birthday, so I think of it as a special gift). It’s been pretty popular, and a quick search shows that a whole raft of people are publishing their own.
I also thought it was pretty great and decided to try it out with a few teams during kick-offs. The point of doing it as a team exercise is so they really get to know each other, build empathy and start to understand how each other is at work. It also brings up things that could cause friction later on if people don’t know about them.
The format I tend to use is:
- Give each team member nine index cards and a pen.
- Ask them to draw themselves first and share their pictures
- Read through the prompts and give some examples so everyone understands them.
- Then, share the prompts as printouts and ask them to spend some time on their own writing down their answers.
- Finally, ask the group to read their cards to each other. If it’s a shy group, I might go first to set the tone.
The prompts are:
Who am I?
Draw a picture of yourself and write your name and role
The times/hours I like to work
Consider your energy patterns; what times do you do your best focus work, what times are best for meetings?
The conditions I like to work in
Think about environmental and social aspects, home or office working preferences, co-working and social interactions.
The best ways to communicate with me
Do you prefer instant messages or time to think? Do you prefer email over instant messages?
The ways I like to receive feedback
How do you like people to share feedback with you, directly, indirectly, in the moment, one-on-one or over messages?
Things I need to do my work
What things are non-negotiable, like coffee, breaks or social interactions?
Things I struggle with or don’t like
What things do you find difficult, frustrating or demotivating at work?
Things I love doing at work
What makes work great for you, energises you or helps you be your best?
Other things to know about me
Is there anything that could affect your mood or availability? Think about personal situations, commitments, or hobbies.
It’s a great exercise, and I’ve seen brand-new teams go from being fairly shy to joking, laughing and sharing important things about their lives. It can also help to inform how the team will work together.
Give it a go, and let me know how it works for you.
You can download these as a pdf here (the drawing prompt is not in this pdf, but don’t forget it as it really helps ease the group in)
15 November 2018 at 9:41 am
I LOVE User Manuals for teams, love love love them. https://t.co/ZZlu0FJke0
15 November 2018 at 10:28 am
This, by the super @ewebber is such a good idea for teams – https://t.co/2PqIL4tZ18
Some of my team have done them and they are aces
16 November 2018 at 4:47 am
From Jamie….
16 November 2018 at 4:49 am
16 November 2018 at 8:30 am
@alexschwartzbln Slides are at https://t.co/mD99OrrPki and bonus blog post at https://t.co/w3KWeOK65Y
17 November 2018 at 8:11 pm
The team manual, an exercise to help build empathy in teams – https://t.co/KfRjta8i9b from @ewebber
20 November 2018 at 4:43 pm
I used a subset of this – the bottom 3 questions + How best to communicate with me – for an inception yesterday. Went down very well with them, although they’d been working together for a while they didn’t know each other that well because they were mostly remote workers.
One of them found it “surprisingly difficult” to write about what they loved and struggled with at work and many of them struggled with being vulnerable in some of the questions.
25 November 2018 at 5:08 pm
Thanks for sharing! This seems to be another good way to make team agreement – I’ll try it 🙂
So far I’ve been trying different way, one that I liked was http://theteamcanvas.com
2 January 2019 at 1:35 pm
We have setup a project management community recently and when we had some new members join the group we went through this exercise. Although some found it uncomfortable they also said that they found it to be a great way to get to know others and feel a bit more like they were part of the group that had already formed. Great stuff emily and cassie. Thanks.