Introduction to health checks
Health checks allow you and your team to have a focused conversation on how you are tracking along key dimensions of team health, such as communication, fun, velocity, processes, etc. - and tracking how they evolve over time.
Health checks are a fantastic way to identify actions you can take to improve your team dynamic; even when the specific opportunities are not currently top-of-mind for the team. Out of the box, TeamRetro supports a standard Team Health Check, the Squad Health Check model, Team Health Radar, and Remote Team Happiness - or you can always build your own.
There are 3 different options for health checks including emoticons, numerical, and a scaled range.
Health check meeting
Creating a health check
Navigate to your team's HEALTH CHECKS tab.
Click START HEALTH CHECK.
Choose your preferred model from a list or pre-defined categories or create a CUSTOM one.
Running a Health Check
ICEBREAKER
Start by setting the tone with an icebreaker question. This encourages early participation and helps everyone get comfortable before diving into the main activities. A fun prompt can boost engagement and create a psychologically safe environment.
WELCOME
In this step, the facilitator introduces the purpose of the Health Check and what the team will be doing. A short welcome message can help align expectations and explain the flow of the meeting. Participants will also see a preview of the survey and any important notes or images you choose to share. The facilitator can also include a CHECK IN QUESTION to better gauge participant mood.
OPEN ACTIONS
Before collecting new feedback, take a moment to review open action items from previous health checks or retrospectives. This keeps the team accountable, celebrates wins, and clears any blockers. Use PRESENT mode to walk through actions and update their status together.
SURVEY
Each member of your team anonymously rates their perception of the team's performance along each dimension. Learn more
DISCUSS
Discuss the results of the survey. If this health check model has been used in the past, the trend (getting better, getting worse) will also be indicated. Team members can independently view each health dimension and add their comments or ideas for action items to improve the score, or the facilitator can guide the conversation and PRESENT each dimension one by one for the team to discuss and identify actions together. Additionally, you can utilize AI to SUGGEST ACTIONS for you based on the discussion. Learn more
REVIEW
The team reviews the actions identified during the meeting and optionally assigns owners and due dates for additional accountability. This is also an opportunity to review actions from previous retrospectives or health checks and update their status. Learn more
CLOSE
The meeting comes to a close where you can PUBLISH your summary through your integrated management app. (e.g. Jira, Confluence). You can also DOWNLOAD the results, which you can SHARE with the team, in either EXCEL or CSV formats. Learn more
