Ways of working series: Team health checks part 2

Author: Véronique Skelsey, Liqueo Ways of Working Agile Coach

You can read all about the benefits of team health checks and how they should be run in our previously published article “Team Health Checks-PART I”.

Running health checks remotely

We know what you are thinking... in the previous article “Team Health Checks PART I”, we said: “.. Health Checks are best carried out in person...!” - so how do we run them effectively during lockdown or with distributed teams?

Luckily, we’ve been busy adapting these face-to-face sessions to video conferencing and online tools. Running an interactive session is still preferable to using survey style methods. This is because teams benefit from having someone on hand to explain the topics and answer any questions about how to use the tools.

There are lots of online tools that can be used for team health checks. Our favourites are Miro and EasyRetro.

The WoW Practice created a template that can be imported into an EasyRetro Board. EasyRetro is a free tool although the free version has limited functionality.

Method for EasyRetro

• Every participant gets 1 vote on each topic (green, amber, or red).
• They also have 1 vote on trend (better, neutral, worse). Voting on trend is super helpful during initial health checks as you can gauge the team’s perception of
• improvement or decline.
• Finally, they have 3 votes at the end to choose the top 3 topics to tackle for improvement (these are in the blue column).

Instructions on setting up the EasyRetro board

Download this template and follow the instructions on how to use it with the EasyRetro tool.

• Open up Easyretro.io 
• Start with a clean board (or the cards will be imported IN ADDITION to the existing cards). If creating a new board, use Create from custom template and name the board including the date of the health check
• Each user has 29 votes each: 1 vote on green/amber/red for each of the 13 topics, 1 vote on trend better/neutral/worse for each of the 13 topics, and 3 votes at the end for the top 3 topics to tackle for improvement
• Add 7 columns: Type, Current–Green; Current–Amber; Current–Red; Trend–Getting better; Trend– Neutral; Trend–Getting worse
• Create board
• Using board Settings cog (top right) Import CSV and import the CSV file from the template we provide  (download this template)
• Map the CSV columns to the columns on the board and Save
• The board is ready for use by the team–send them a Share link to participate

N.B. On the free plan you can have a total of 3 boards, so delete old boards by going into the board and using the board Settings cog (top right), choose Delete Board (this cannot be undone!). You can also only use 3 boards per month, so if you have already created some this month, re-purpose them rather than delete them, as you will not be able to use more than 3 in a month.

The collaboration tool Miro–a digital whiteboard

Miro is a  fabulous collaboration tool that allows everyone to participate on a  digital whiteboard and share in real-time.  Create a version of the questions on Miro as Post-It’s and save as a reusable template.

Method with Miro

The method is very similar to EasyRetro but the tool works slightly differently.

• Every participant gets 1 vote on each topic (green, amber, or red).
• They also have 1 vote on trend (better, neutral, worse). Voting on trend is super helpful during initial health checks as you can gauge the team’s perception of improvement or decline.
• Finally,  they have  3  votes at the end to choose the top  3  topics to tackle for improvement (these are in the blue column). 
• In the paid version of Miro, you can use the voting function to run a  ‘session’ which will start a  Voting Session,  open the vote,  close automatically and count the votes.

N.B. In the  “free”  version you will have to use the manual  ‘dot-voting’  method and tally all the votes by hand.

Get in touch

Here at Liqueo we deliver an exceptional, bespoke service to every client via a dynamic and agile framework. Our flexible workforce model is very responsive to client needs. Utilising highly skilled and experienced consultants. Our global, permanent Liqueo staff are supplemented by a niche group of associate partners to work on projects where required. For more on team health checks, please refer back to “Team Health Checks-PART I”.

If you have any questions or need any help running a  team health check,  the Liqueo WoW Practice is available to help. Contact us at wow@liqueo.com.