Course Highlights
This one-day team-building workshop will:
- Give teams a clear, data-driven picture of where they are right now using the Team Health Assessment across twenty key performance areas.
- Identify the gap between the team’s current state and where it needs to be, and surface the quick wins that can close it fastest.
- Help teams create or confirm their mission, vision, values, and goals in language specific enough to guide real decisions.
- Introduce practical tools for surfacing ideas, navigating conflict, and getting to decisions the team can act on.
- Close with a team charter the group builds together and owns before they leave the room.
Course Overview
Some teams need a strong start. Others need a reset. Both need the same thing: clarity about where they are, agreement on where they are going, and a shared understanding of how they will get there together.
“Start Up or Reboot: The Team Focus Workshop” is a one-day onsite workshop designed for teams at either of those moments. The day opens with the Team Health Assessment, a diagnostic tool that gives the group a concrete picture of its current performance across twenty areas before any conversation about improvement begins. From that data, the team conducts a gap analysis, identifies quick wins, and builds toward a team charter that captures everything the day produced.
Between the assessment and the charter, the workshop addresses the elements that determine whether a team functions or merely coexists: mission and purpose, roles and contributions, communication style, conflict navigation, accountability, and empowerment. The day does not produce a list of good intentions. It produces a document the team leaves with and a set of conversations they will not have to have again from scratch.
The following outline highlights some of the workshop’s learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).
Program Objectives
At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:
- Describe their team’s current state using data from the Team Health Assessment and identify the areas that most need attention.
- Conduct a gap analysis between the team’s present state and its desired future and identify at least two quick wins worth pursuing immediately.
- Define or confirm the team’s mission, vision, values, and goals in terms specific enough to guide behavior.
- Describe how individual roles and contributions connect to the team’s shared objectives.
- Apply the RAP technique and the Communication Jungle to navigate conflict and communication challenges more effectively.
- Draft a team charter that captures the team’s commitments and will hold up over time.
Workshop Modules
Assessing the Present: Evaluating Team Health
The day opens with data. Participants will complete the Team Health Assessment, a diagnostic tool that evaluates the team’s performance across twenty areas including communication, trust, collaboration, conflict resolution, accountability, and leadership. The results give the group a concrete, honest picture of where it stands before anyone offers an opinion. The debrief surfaces what the data reveals, what surprised the group, and what it already knew but had not named.
Where We Are Going: Gap Analysis and Quick Wins
With a clear picture of the present, attention turns to the gap between where the team is and where it needs to be. Participants will work through a structured analysis that identifies the most significant gaps, spots the opportunities closest to reach, and begins to set priorities for the day and beyond. This section keeps the group from staying in diagnosis mode too long and moves quickly toward decisions and actions.
Mission, Vision, and Values: Creating or Confirming Direction
A team that cannot articulate its purpose in a sentence is already in trouble. This part of the day gives teams the structure and the conversation to define or confirm their mission, vision, and values in language everyone can actually use. For teams that already have these on paper, the session tests whether the stated direction is reflected in daily behavior or sitting in a document no one reads. Participants will also examine how the team’s purpose connects to the larger organization’s mission.
Understanding Team Members: Roles and Contributions
Effective teams know what each person is there to do and how each contribution fits into the whole. This section addresses role clarity, task ownership, and the kinds of contributions that often go unrecognized until they are missing. Participants will examine how empowerment works in practice, what it actually requires, and what gets in the way of people operating at their best within a team setting.
Fostering Discussion: Communication and Conflict Tools
This part of the day gives teams practical tools for two things that derail more teams than anything else: talking past each other and avoiding the conversations that need to happen. Participants will work with the Communication Jungle to examine how different styles affect team discussions and decisions, and apply the RAP technique as a structured approach for navigating disagreement. The focus stays on practical and immediately applicable rather than theoretical.
Creating a Team Charter: Defining How We Operate
The workshop closes with the team charter, a document the group builds from everything the day produced. The charter captures the team’s mission and direction, its norms and agreements, its approach to accountability, and its commitments about how members will work together. Teams that complete this exercise leave with something tangible and specific, not a summary of what was discussed but an agreement they made together.
Target Audience
This workshop is designed for groups that want to:
- Assess current team health honestly and use that data to set meaningful priorities.
- Establish clear direction, shared norms, and explicit agreements about how the team operates.
- Give new teams a strong foundation or give established teams a productive reset.
- Leave with a team charter that reflects real conversations rather than aspirational language.
Frequently Asked Questions About This Team Focus Workshop
Is this workshop better for new teams or established ones?
Both. For new teams, the workshop establishes clear direction, shared norms, and explicit agreements before bad habits form. For established teams, it surfaces what has been working, names what has not, and creates space for honest conversation that daily work rarely allows. In our experience, established teams often find the Team Health Assessment the most valuable part of the day because it puts data behind what people have been sensing but not saying.
What is the Team Health Assessment?
The Team Health Assessment is a structured self-evaluation that asks team members to rate their group’s performance across twenty areas, including communication, trust, collaboration, conflict resolution, accountability, leadership, and goal alignment. Each person completes it individually at the start of the day. The results are compiled and reviewed as a group, giving the team a shared, data-driven picture of where it stands before any conversation about improvement begins. The assessment is designed to surface what people already know but have not said out loud, and to put numbers behind impressions that have been floating around the team for a while.
What is the Communication Jungle?
The Communication Jungle is a Business Training Works communication style tool. This workshop uses an abbreviated version to help participants understand how different styles affect team discussion and decision-making. The facilitator introduces it during the session.
What is the RAP technique?
RAP is a Business Training Works tool for navigating conflict. The facilitator introduces and teaches it during the workshop. No advance preparation is required.
What does the team charter look like?
The charter the team builds during the workshop captures its mission and direction, its agreements about norms and accountability, and its commitments about how members will work together. It is specific to the group that built it rather than templated. Teams that complete this consistently describe it as more useful than similar documents they have produced in traditional offsites because it comes directly from a day of real work.
How long is this program?
The standard format is a full-day onsite session. We can adjust the duration and emphasis based on your schedule and priorities.
Can this workshop be customized for our team?
Yes. As with all Business Training Works programs, we can modify content as needed to meet your group’s specific goals and objectives.