Have you ever wondered how to better evaluate and assess your team's overall health? Are you a team manager or leader looking for methods to monitor your team's performance and morale? The Squad Health Check, also known as the Team Health Check, is the right tool.
The concept of a Team Health Check, first popularized by Spotify and further refined by Atlassian (Team Health Monitors) and Google's rework initiative, is a dynamic way of measuring your team's performance and health.
This method isn’t about individual achievements or the last sprint; instead, it provides a holistic 360-degree view of the team's dynamics, problems, and areas ripe for improvement. It helps team leaders pinpoint problem areas so they get more effectively target their interventions.
Often conducted through a survey or questionnaire, this tool promotes self-reflection, team alignment, and continuous improvement. Initially designed for regular retros or retrospectives, this self-assessment tool has proven instrumental in highlighting areas that a team may be struggling with.
Learn more about the Team Health Check model by reading our ultimate guide.
The original Spotify Team Health Check was created specifically for software development and engineering teams, providing a set of questions aimed at areas like delivering value, team mission, speed, support, learning, and fun.
However, in addition to software engineering teams, RetroWave has created a number of additional templates for UX and Product Design teams, Customer Service and CX teams, and a universal template that works for any team. The universal template was built using Google's Rework research that looked into the key traits of successful and happy teams.
RetroWave has expanded on the original Spotify Squad Health Check by creating free custom templates for diverse teams of designers, developers, and customer service professionals. A Universal template has also been crafted for versatility, ensuring all teams, regardless of specialization, can benefit from a team or squad health check.
Built for Product Design and User Experience Teams, this design team health check template includes questions focused on design quality, design process, feedback, impact and value, and how user-driven the team is. Learn more about the Design Team Health Check.
This squad health check template was built for customer service teams and poses questions about team morale, knowledge and documentation, skills and training, and service level agreement (SLA) compliance. Read more about the CX Team Health Check template.
This template is based on the original Spotify squad health check exercise and asks development teams questions about health of the codebase, the release process, speed of delivery, opportunities to learn, and more. Learn more about the Development Team Health Check template.
This template was designed to work for any team regardless of their speciality and is based on the Google Re:Work project that defined the key characteristics of successful, happy, and high-performing teams. Those 5 key dynamics that make happy teams are psychological safety, dependability, structure & clarity, meaning of work, and impact of the work. The Universal Squad Health Check template created by RetroWave includes these learnings and will work for any team.
RetroWave has created an online tool that allows leaders and managers of remote agile teams to conduct Team Health Check retrospectives remotely or in-person.
We bring an element of fun to your squad health check retrospectives so that not only do you unlock some insights about your team but your team will enjoy themselves along the way.
RetroWave's Team Health Check online tool isn't just another questionnaire or survey tool, it's a collaborative and engaging platform that truly facilitates insightful conversations.
Try our free Team Health Check templates today and make the first step towards a more resilient, united, and high-performing team.
