Team Health Surveys
Introduction
If you are a leader in a software development team, how do know the team is doing well?
If you have done the work to establish a good working environment for the team you can see it and hear it in team conversations, people enjoy being part of the team and others want to join your team. Keep reading if you think there’s room for improvement in your team.
If you are a technology department manager or leader, how do you know software developments teams are doing well? Maybe you rely on manager feedback, skip levels, or observation to understand if teams are doing well or if they are struggling. Keep reading if you observe team challenges and don’t understand how you can help.
Survey
I have used a team health survey across 3 organizations to facilitate team improvement conversations, we have also leveraged the survey results in aggregate to have a perspective on how teams and the department are doing.
When we looked at what questions to ask in a survey we started with purpose, e.g.
- The survey serves the team
- The survey should cover areas of team work
- Taking the survey should not feel like a chore, make it short
- The survey areas of interest are: individual, team communication, team skills and tooling, team decision making, working iteratively, fun, trust, and and area for open feedback
The areas to cover can vary by organization but the above survey can work for any team. A group and team is not the same, the latter has aligned skills and a shared purpose.
All questions scored on a sliding scale from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree.” All required fields required, except last field.
1 - Individual I’m able to focus on my work
2 - Team Communication Our team communicates well with each other in an open and transparent manner
3 - Team Communication We can work through our disagreements with respect
4 - Team Skills Our team has the right mix of skills to deliver working software
5 - Team Tooling Our team has what they need to deliver work
6 - Team Decision Making In this team we are able to decompose difficult problems, quickly and effectively
7 - Team Decision Making Making decisions in this team is straightforward
8 - Working Iteratively In this team we slice-up products and features into small batches that can be completed in a iteration/sprint/cycle
9 - Fun In this team we have fun working together
10 - Team Trust Our team shares responsibilities and can trust each other to create a positive outcome
11 - Open Feedback What is your opinion on the past iteration/sprint/cycle
The surveys are anonymous, if the team is ready they can be non-anonymous.
Roll out
The team survey should have buying from managers and leaders in addition to teams.
Management needs to explain what problem they are trying to solve with a team health survey, and what
Keep An Eye On
- Facilitation
- Action from surveys
Credits
- Dana Bina, Corinne Maloof, Margaret Walters