Squad Health Check
Assesses team health across dimensions such as speed and teamwork.
PURPOSE
The Squad Health Check is used to regularly measure the health status and satisfaction of teams and to identify development needs early. It solves the problem that team issues are often recognized too late because there is no systematic early warning system. This enables leaders and teams to work specifically on the topics that have the greatest impact on team performance and satisfaction.
HOW TO USE
Conduct the Health Check regularly with the team, ideally every four to eight weeks. Jointly assess each dimension using a traffic light color: green (good), yellow (some issues), or red (bad), supplemented by a trend arrow (upward, stable, downward). Discuss the results as a team and select one to two dimensions to work on specifically. Compare results over time to make progress visible.
WHAT IT IS
The Squad Health Check is a team assessment tool developed at Spotify. It evaluates team health across dimensions such as delivery speed, teamwork, fun, learning, mission, pawns or players, codebase health, and release process. Each dimension is rated with a traffic light color and a trend arrow, providing a compact overview of the team's condition.
EXAMPLE
Example: You are an Agile Coach and conduct a quarterly Squad Health Check with your four Scrum teams, in which each team rates dimensions like Delivering Value, Speed, Mission, Fun, and Learning with green, yellow, or red cards. Comparing across three quarters, you see that Team Gamma consistently shows red on Fun – a signal you address with targeted measures.