What is a team mission?

This post is the second in a series of mini articles on agile chartering inspired by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies' book Liftoff: Start and Sustain Successful Agile Teams and my work as a coach helping teams in creating effective agile charters. These articles summarize the 9 elements of an agile charter.

A team mission sets boundaries. While a product vision may result from many teams' efforts, a team mission is the specific and potentially unique contribution of a single team in the overall product ecosystem converging on the product vision. Think of the team's mission as the path a specific team takes to do their part.

In the previous post, "What's a product vision," we looked at a customer enjoying a convenient, refreshing beverage. Far upstream from this customer experience there is a can maker. A possible team mission for the can maker would be something like:

Can Maker Team Mision

"We make the containers that hold the beverage. We use the latest technology and material science to create safe, environmentally responsible and cost effective container solutions. Our containers integrate well into the beverage supply chain and are a convenient size for the customer."

This team mission makes clear what the can maker team contributes to the product vision by defining boundaries or guard rails for the work that they do. By establishing these boundaries, the team mission also makes clear work that the team does not do. For example, the can maker team does not make the cardboard cartons that will hold six, twelve or 24 pack versions of the retail product.

While the product vision sets a north star that all teams can agree on as the ultimate goal, the team mission clarifies purpose at a single team level. Each team that contributes to the product vision should have its own team mission.

Now that you know what a team mission is, what's your team’s mission?