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 Agreements and Commitments

Description
Agreements for a reflective community are a code of behavior for how members will act and interact. They are an expression of the community’s values, and their understanding about what it takes to work in a collaborative and productive community. Agreements might include, ‘Ask for what you need, and offer what you can," or "Respect each member’s views and contributions." Commitments are more specific, in that they are guidelines for participation, including the regularity of participation in conversations, the frequency of contributions to documents, the timeliness of responses to messages or emails, and the length of messages and emails. Both agreements and commitments serve a most important purpose for the community, as they establish the rules of the road right from the start, and offer a way for the community to reflect and improve on their experience in working together. Taking the time to regularly review and revise agreements and commitments during reflections is also an important community practice, as they will inevitably change as the community matures.

Example
One reflective community wrote their agreements as a set of governing values:
  • We value each member’s knowledge and experience
  • We value open, honest communication
  • We value participation and contributions by all members
  • We value diversity of views and opinions
  • We value appropriate uses of humor
  • We value requests for confidentiality
  • We value personal responsibility for ethical behavior

Their commitments included:

  1. All members will make at least one contribution to each online conversation during the specified time period.
  2. All members will contribute to documents produced by the community during specified time periods.
  3. Members who are not able to participate in a 2-week time period will notify the community’s facilitator.
  4. Members will limit email messages to 200 words or less.
  5. Members will respond to email messages within 3 working days.
  6. Members will limit contributions to online conversations to 450 words; longer contributions will be provided in a downloadable version.

 
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