Getting More from Your Team Health Checks

Team health checks at Spotify prove that a one-size-fits-all approach fails; the real value comes from customizing the check to the squad's current context and digging deeper than surface scores. By treating the health check as a conversation starter rather than a checkbox, leaders can surface trust issues and hidden blockers that standard retrospectives miss.

The process starts with a simple survey covering tech, team, and product health, followed by a debrief workshop where the squad discusses results. Without careful facilitation, teams fall into a "meh" routine, focusing on actions that look good on paper but miss deeper insights. The article warns against transactional facilitation that stifles honest dialogue and highlights the risk of leaders using the data only for top-down monitoring.

Customization is key: choose a health-check framework that fits, tweak questions for current challenges-like quality regressions, onboarding new hires, or distributed work-and ensure the data still feeds into the organization-wide view. Sample questions encourage curiosity, such as asking what would raise a score or what behaviors support the team, helping squads surface root causes instead of quick fixes.

Follow-through distinguishes effective health checks. After the workshop, leaders must debrief, track actions in backlogs, and revisit themes in one-on-ones. Aggregating results across squads reveals patterns for systemic improvements, turning individual conversations into organization-level learning.

In practice, this approach has helped Spotify squads move from routine surveys to meaningful, data-driven conversations that improve team cohesion, communication, and overall performance.