For Teams

Team Journey Canvas

Define your team's story through four elements

In every team coaching session I come to a moment I call the Team Journey. It is a powerful, simple, and yet complex puzzle piece to solve in any team formation phase. Simple because it requires the team to agree on a narrative of their intended journey. Complex because the context in which teams operate has many dimensions, dependencies, and stakeholders.

A Team Journey helps you define your relationship to the dynamic context you are operating in. It is the compass of the team. Once defined, it sets into motion role definition, collaboration, and a clear narrative for all stakeholders.

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Who is it for?

The canvas is for anyone involved with self-steering or autonomous teams — team coaches, project managers, founders, innovation managers, transformation specialists, startup mentors, and VCs.

When to use it: Any time a team starts a project or when a new team is forming.

Creative Commons licensed. Free to use. Inspired by Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.

The Four Elements

🏘

The Village

The Problem

The part of the world you are connected to. By seeing the village, you position yourself as an observer — the first step in becoming a team.

“20,000 young adults don't have a job in the Amsterdam region”

🛡

The Hero

The Mission

The team that chooses to commit. Freedom comes through permission — a mutual promise to be loyal to certain values. You now work in service of something bigger than you.

“We promise to develop healthy and organic food products for youngsters”

⚔

The Sword

The Solution

The means that serves the end. One noun is emerging. If you break it into bullet points, you are at the wrong abstraction level.

“We are making a crowdsource platform for the fintech community”

🐉

The Dragon

The Goal

The obstacle that needs to be removed. Tangible, measurable. You cannot control the outcome. Every transaction shifts the power balance.

“We will sell 20,000 litres of healthy coconut water to supermarkets in 2025”

The T.E.A.M. Framework

Four archetypical teams, each associated with a different stage of the change lifecycle. The framework helps organisations understand the different human needs within teams — factors like motivation, values, creative skills, and culture.

Transformers

Formed on willingness. They relabel and repurpose resources for the new vision. They host “cocoons” — incubators, offsites, hackathons — where it is safe to shed and be reborn.

Explorers

Rare teams for deep innovation. Independent, like teenagers in the attic. Their product is knowledge. They align by elimination of the weakest idea, not compromise.

Artisans

Connected through their material. Craftsmen delivering a unique object. The Hollywood model applies. The satisfaction is in the making, not the recognition.

Mechanics

Masters of reordering. Operators who turn nouns into verbs and verbs into numbers. Pragmatic, data-driven. They build the machine and continuously learn and grow.