Team Journey Canvas
Define your Team Story with The Team Journey Canvas
So in every team training or coaching session I will at some point come to a moment what I coined as The Team Journey. I found it to be a powerful, simple and yet complex puzzle piece to solve in any team formation phase. It is simple as it requires the team to agree on a simple narrative of their intended journey. Yet complex as the context in which teams operate have many dimensions, perspectives, dependencies and stakeholders. A Team Journey helps you define your relationship to the dynamic context you as a team are operating in. I consider it to be extremely valuable and it has helped many teams find the clarity they sought. Through this post I am sharing it with you and hope it will help you and your teams in their endeavours.
Who is the Team Journey Canvas for?
The canvas is great for anybody involved with self-steering teams or autonomous teams. Basically it helps teams that can set their own course and even destination. Often it is hard for the team itself to fill it in without the help of someone that supports them from the outside. So the people that actually introduce this canvas to teams are: team coaches, project managers, program managers, start-up mentors, innovation managers, digital transformation specialists, founders, designthinkers, VC’s and other roles that are supportive to the team.
When to use the Team Journey Canvas?
The canvas can be used anytime a team starts a project or when a new team is forming. It is the anchor that connects the team to their context and also defines the space in which it can find it’s freedom.
I designed this canvas to help teams really make some critical choices in how they relate and operate within their context. It is too often that I witness teams that indentify themselves by the “product” they are making. My experience is that this creates what I call “orphan teams”. They create products that are treated as hot potatoes once they have grown to a certain level of strength. It is unclear to whom the product belongs and to whom it should be given. It is like having a baby without a last name.
Another thing I often see is, that it is unclear for whom the team is working exactly. They often mix up the internal “customer” with the “external” customer, trying to please both. But does the project exist to please a board of directors or is the team committed to help the customer that lives outside the headquarters?
Without having these elements clear, teams tend to get stuck in a “cause and effect” loop instead of in an “means to an end” mentality. The team explains themselves in a lineair manner walking from the problem to the solution, ignoring the team’s mission and the uncomfortable exposed act they need to perform in order to be successful as a team.
Get clear team roles through a Team Journey
Once a team journey is clear it sets into motion a process of role definition and collaboration. Many times when a team had unclear roles or it is unclear who needs to do what and when it is because of a still undefined team journey.
Get a clear team narrative for all stakeholders
Once a team journey is defined it also becomes apparent to all stakeholders which unfamiliar terrain needs to be treaded by the team. It also clear which familiar resources the team will use to reach that goal. Many times we also wrestle with finding our 30 second pitch of our project. Having a clear Team Journey helps you to share your project in a compelling way with others even if they don’t understand the intricacies of the domain you are operating in.
Canvas Explanation:
The Canvas has four main areas that needs to be filled in by the team: The Village(problem), The Hero(mission), The Sword(solution) and The Dragon(goal). It is crucial in the development of the team that there is a shared understanding and alignment of these four elements. These four areas anchor the team into it’s story. Filling it in sounds easy but trust me that most teams struggle significantly with becoming aligned on their actual journey.
1. The Village:
The village is a part of the Earth that you are connected to, or feel a part of. For example if you are a salesperson, it might be that you consider you are part of the worldwide village of salespeople. Or maybe you are a teacher and your village is the school you are working in, with all the students and teachers. By seeing the village you are part of, you have positioned yourself in an observer position. This observer position is the first crucial step in becoming a team. You need to be able to observe the system you are defacto still a part of. Strangely enough thinking and talking about the problem within your “village” many times feels very disloyal. In other cases it might reveal a vulnerability in the system, which is scary to admit. Therfore it might be accompanied with sadness, frustration or anger.
Good example statement: “20.000 young adults don’t have a job in the Amsterdam region”
Bad example statement: We need more jobs”
2. The Hero:
The Hero in the canvas is the team that chooses to commit to changing the situation. The only way a team can truly become free to do this is by requesting permission to go on the mission. This permission arises mutually with the promise to be loyal to certain values. This contract binds you to the system but allows you to become an independent version: the next generation of the system. It is like an oath you sign. A pledge. You now work in service of something bigger than you.
Good example statement: ”We promise to develop healthy and organic food products for youngsters”
Bad example statement:” We are a time management app for millennials”
3. The Sword:
The sword is the means that serves the end. It is the hammer to drive the nail into the wood. Many times teams tend to break this one sword up into bullet points or multiple actions. If that is the case you are looking at it on the wrong abstraction level. Zoom out to see the one thing you as a team are giving birth to. There is one noun that is emerging as your team is on it’s way to reach their goal. It might be a plan, a case, a product, a program, a service or a campaign.
Good example statement: “We are making a crowdsource platform for the fintech community”
Bad example statement: “We are solving the climate problem with AI technology”
4. The Dragon
This is one of the hardest to define. It is the goal of the team. The dragon represents the obstacle that needs to be removed or replaced. It really comes down to shifting molecules on earth. It is literally effecting the real physical tangible world. As it is tangible it is measurable. It is therefore easy to measure if you have succeeded in killing the dragon. The nature of this part of the project is that you cannot control the outcome. There is no certainty. Also it requires probably multiple “strikes” to kill the dragon. Every transaction that takes place here, kills the dragon and feeds the team. Shifting the power balance.
Good example statement: “We will selling 20.000 liter of healthy coconut water to supermarkets in 2025”
Bad example statement: “We will launch the app in the App store in December 2024”
As you can see the bad example statements sound like very plausible sentences you can imagine hearing when you talk to a team. They are not bad sentences in itself, but they are hurting the team when you use them to define the team. They lack the ability to contain the team in the right logic structure and emotionally charged narrative.
Feel free to experiment with the canvas in your team sessions. Please let me know your experiences when you using the canvas. Download button below.
Note: This canvas could not have been made without the tremendous work of Joseph Campbell who developed the Hero’s Journey.
Download the Team Journey Canvas for Free
The canvas is available under the creative commons license and free to use.