Checking the health of a team
Every once in a while, someone will say something along the lines of, “well our processes work for us.” Rightfully, these people tend to believe that processes should fit the team. Sometimes they’re the same people who say, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” But how do we know that an experience is a symptom of something broken, and who is in charge of looking out for opportunities to introduce processes or to change an existing one?
This is where a candid conversation on what’s working and what isn’t can be helpful. Where I work, we run mandatory health checks across the engineering teams to understand the sentiment, hold space for feedback and discussion, and to improve the teams next quarter. Senior leadership uses the numbers from each team to introduce support for future engineering work.
How is it done?
The process is led by a facilitator who will host the event and bring all teams into the session. A survey is conducted anonymously on ten pillars of health. Team members respond with an integer rating from 1 to 5. The ten pillars I’ve come to understand through Vox Media Engineering include: Mission, Process, Speed, Support, Pawns or Players, Value, Learning, Ease to release, Code Base Health, and Fun.
No conversation is needed during the voting period. Following the voting, the conversation is…
