What is the Health Check Thermometer?
A Health Check allows a team to provide a score for a variety of factors that make up their team “health”, such as morale, process, speed, value delivered, alignment, communication, and more.
Using a thermometer scale is a simple, visual way of collecting and assessing the scores, making it easy for a team to identify and discuss areas for improvement together.
How to use the Health Check Thermometer
- The template is pre-filled with an example of a sprint health check. You can use this or customise it to add your own questions at the top of each thermometer e.g. “Is our communication effective?”.
- Explain the exercise to the team.
- Ask the team to take a mood token and place it on the mood thermometer for each question.
- People can add an optional accompanying sticky note if they want to write an explanation.
- Everyone reviews the results silently.
- Ask the team what they want to discuss, and where there is room for improvement, or why a particular score ranks well.
- Look for opportunities to ask the team how they could try to improve any given factor, and brainstorm that together. Tip – try to make it an action with an owner, due date, and success criteria.
- In the next team session, review the actions, ask the team to re-score the factors and compare to the previous session. Look for further improvement opportunities.
- Repeat as often as you feel is needed. A two-week or monthly basis is a good place to start.
Do’s and Don’ts of Team Health Checks
A team health check can be a difficult activity for a new team, or one that is having issues. It is crucial to introduce the topic of team health checks carefully, taking the time to explain why you would like to try one with the team. Some key tips:
- Do – explain why. Your intention is to improve the team’s work environment, not to single out individuals
- Do – make it optional, but try to help the team understand why it can benefit them.
- Do – keep the information within the team – do not share it with anyone else.
- Don’t – some Team Health issues can be obvious and require different approaches. Don’t use a Team Health Check as a substitute for having frank conversations with individuals.
