Team health check template
A health check is a short, anonymous survey a team repeats every few weeks. One score tells you little. The movement from round to round tells you where the team is heading and what to talk about in the next retro.
Run it with your team
A health check repeats, so it lives in a team and needs a free account. The latest round's results are included on the free plan. The trend across rounds is part of the Team plan.
A team's results across several rounds, with made-up data. The movement since last round is what to read first.
The statements
Each statement is rated from 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true) for the team right now. Pick six to ten. Eight is a good start: purpose, value, pace, quality, teamwork, ownership, support and fun.
Purpose
We know why we are doing this work, and it matters.
Delivering value
What we deliver is useful to the people it is for.
Pace
We get things done at a pace that feels right, without rushing.
Quality
We are proud of the quality of our work and our code.
Releasing
Getting our work out the door is easy and calm.
Teamwork
We work well together and help each other out.
Ownership
We decide how we work and feel in control of it.
Support
We get the help and resources we need when we ask.
Learning
We are learning things that make us better at what we do.
Fun
We enjoy working together.
How to run one
- Explain why you are asking and what will happen with the answers, before you send it. A health check nobody trusts measures nothing.
- Keep it anonymous, and don't try to work out who said what. Don't show results until enough people have answered that no answer can be traced.
- Leave it open for about a week, so people answer when it suits them rather than on the spot.
- Keep the same statements between rounds. Changing them breaks the comparison that makes the exercise worth doing.
- Run it every four to six weeks, or once a quarter for a team that changes slowly.
How to read the results
Look at movement before level. A 3 that was a 2 is good news, and a 4 that was a 5 is something to ask about.
- Look for the statements that dropped most since last time.
- A wide spread on one statement means people are having different experiences of the same team. That is worth a conversation on its own.
- Pick one or two to discuss, not all of them. Bring them to the next retro and turn them into an action with an owner and a date.
- At the next round, check whether that statement moved. That is the loop closing.
Questions
- How many statements should a team health check have?
- Six to ten. Fewer than six misses things, and more than ten makes people rush through them. The tool accepts anywhere from three to twelve.
- Is the health check anonymous?
- Answers are anonymous, and nothing is shown until at least three people have answered, so a single answer can't be pinned on someone by elimination.
- Where does the format come from?
- The idea of rating a handful of qualities and watching them over time comes from the squad health check model Spotify described in 2014. The statements here are our own wording.
- What do I get on the free plan?
- You can set up a team health check, run rounds and see the results of the latest round. Comparing rounds and seeing the trend over time is part of the Team plan.
Find out how your team is doing
Create a team, choose your statements and send the first round today.
Set up a health check