Framework library · Leadership, teams and culture
Team Canvas
The Team Canvas, created by Alex Ivanov and Mitya Voloshchuk, puts the conversations a new team usually skips onto one page. The workbench here is Blue Prysm's own. It works through three questions in turn (why the team exists, who is on it, and how it will work) and then records each need between members as an agreement with a lead time and a status, so differences surface in the first week rather than the third month.
Use it when
- A new team or project team is starting and its members come from different functions or companies.
- A team's membership or goal has changed and people are working to different assumptions.
- Arguments in a team keep returning to the same unspoken questions: what the team is for, who does what, and what members expect of each other.
- Two organisations are forming a joint team and need shared rules before the work starts.
Avoid it when
- The team needs a strategy or a business model. Use a Business Model Canvas or a strategy tool. The Team Canvas covers how the team works, not what it sells.
- Decision rights between teams are the issue. Use a RACI matrix across the teams.
- Trust has broken down badly between particular people. A canvas session will not repair that. Deal with it directly first.
How to run it
Start with why the team exists
The purpose in a sentence, what the team will achieve together and by when, and what each member wants personally from it: a skill, a step in their career, fewer weekend call-outs. Saying personal goals out loud prevents hidden agendas.
Then who is on it
Names and roles, what the team is good at, and where it is short of skill or capacity. In a joint team, note which organisation each person reports to.
Then how it will work
The few principles that will settle arguments, each written as a behaviour, and the rules and regular routines the team will keep.
Record what each person needs from the others
In the second part, one line per need: who needs what, from whom, with how much notice. Be specific: "final designs four weeks before mobilising", not "good communication".
Settle the disputed needs
Mark each need agreed, not yet agreed or disputed. Resolve the disputed ones in the session, or name who will and by when.
Review after a month
Put the rules where the team works, check the needs after the first month and change what is not working.
Work through it
Answer the questions below, or load the worked example to see a finished one. The drawing updates as you type. Export the result as a PowerPoint deck, a Word document, an Excel workbook, a PDF or plain text.
What you type stays in this browser, so you can close the page and come back to it. It is not sent to Blue Prysm or anyone else, and the exports are made here, on your device. Privacy policy.
Mistakes to avoid
- Letting the leader fill it in and present it. The value is in the team saying it; a presented canvas is a memo, and nobody feels bound by it.
- Writing principles as single words ("trust", "respect"). Without the behaviour, nobody can tell whether the principle is being kept.
- Skipping personal goals because they feel awkward. Unspoken personal goals are a common source of later conflict.
- Never looking at it again. Rules nobody reviews drift within weeks, and the arguments the session settled come back.
Where it comes from
Created by Alex Ivanov and Mitya Voloshchuk in 2015, inspired by Alexander Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas, and published at theteamcanvas.com. Source.
The Team Canvas is the work of Alex Ivanov and Mitya Voloshchuk. This workbench is Blue Prysm's own design, built from the published idea. It does not reproduce the canvas and is not endorsed by its authors.
Use it with
Further reading
Work through it with us
The frameworks here are free to use as they stand. If you would rather work through the question behind this one with us, these are the ways an engagement starts.