In order to get ahead of projects and make progress on organizational goals, it’s critical to set expectations with your team—and the best way to do it? Loop them in from the start.

Check in one-on-one with every individual team member to clarify current workflows, career goals, and specialized skills. Then meet as a group to discover opportunities for growth and collaboration. When you discuss each objective and position with your team, you’ll identify redundancies, roadblocks, and opportunities for efficiency. You’ll also confirm that everyone knows exactly what is expected of them, and who to report to along the way.

Writing out team expectations is fairly simple and benefits from a collaborative process. Begin by consulting with each team member and department to discuss their positions, upcoming projects, and every assigned task. Then, put everything down on a shared document—simply list team members' names alongside their roles and a run-down of their responsibilities.

Keep expectations crystal clear by organizing them into a chart format. FigJam’s expectation setting template will help you organize both responsibilities and managerial hierarchies into a visual format. Your team members can log onto the template from anywhere and pinpoint their individual tasks with ease. They can also ask questions, leave updates, and exchange info directly on the chart—it doesn’t get any clearer than that.