6.4 Creating Groups

Roles are one thing — collaboration is a whole different story. Who works with whom, on what topic, and how? That’s a question that needs to be clearly defined with teams.

It’s important to make distinctions here, because misunderstandings often occur:

If three people hold the same role — for example, “Customer Service Agent (CSA)” — then that role is created. The role defines what a CSA does, and the role is then assigned to those three people.
This clarifies what each of them needs to do as a CSA.

However, their collaboration is not described in the role itself. To do that, we need to set up a group — a card in a green list — a Circle or a Project.

That’s where you’ll find topics like “Establish CSA within the company” or “Test new tools,” etc., and that’s also where a Lead is designated for the “CSA Team.”

Which brings me to the typical case:
A team operates through its Circles and Projects.
Remember the Miro boards I showed you earlier? In such scenarios, the Circles and Projects in teamdecoder are actually created before the roles, because they reflect the team’s structure at its core.

Only in a second step do we define which roles need to come together in each Circle to fulfill its purpose.

How do we create a group?

A group — meaning a Circle or a Project (or whatever you choose to name these green lists for your project) — contains the following elements:

A Circle/Project is defined — almost just like roles — as follows:

• Name

• Purpose

• Tasks

• Objectives

• Meetings – more on that below!

• Notes

And on the right-hand side, there are some group-specific elements:

• Lead – Does this group have a lead? This can be a person or a single-owner role (see above).
  Stand-In – This is the deputy for the group lead.
  Lead Tasks – What does the lead actually do in this group? Do they need to host meetings? Provide strategic guidance?
  Administration – What else needs to be organized to ensure this group can work effectively?

And also:

• Documents

• Tags

How do we assign roles to a group?

First, I always recommend assigning roles, not people, to groups. This way, the person clearly knows what they’re supposed to do in the group, and the group setup remains intact even if someone steps out of a role later on.

In teamdecoder, we "build" groups in the Circle/Project Focus Mode — just like with people, we set a group into focus and can then view and modify all its members.

(See the article in the Knowledge Base for more details.)

I’ll walk you through the numbered elements in the image again:

1. This Circle is currently in focus.

2. In all lists, at the top (white on dark), you now see the roles that are part of this group.

3. At the bottom (gray on light), you see all other roles. These can be assigned or removed using the +/- buttons or via drag and drop.

4. teamdecoder translates roles into people and shows in the yellow list which individuals are part of this group based on their assigned roles. The gray pills indicate which role the person holds in the group. You can also see who the Lead is via the “Lead” pill.

5. Up here, you can exit the focus mode again.

Using Circles and Projects Properly

Both lists represent groups and work identically. This means you can use Circles for one type of group and Projects for another. “Projects” don’t have to be literal projects — the term is more of a serving suggestion :)

There is one small difference: Projects can be assigned to Circles, but not the other way around. So, if needed, there is a small hierarchy between the two green lists.

Examples:

• You have a "Marketing" Circle and assign it the Project "Create new website" — or

• You have a "Marketing" Circle and assign it the sub-group "Social Media Marketing" as a Project, renaming the list to something like “Sub-Departments”.

These assignments are optional.