Check on your team, not just your sprint

2026-10-09 · The Scrums team

Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day. Sprint charts tell you how the work is going. A regular health check tells you how the team is.

Tomorrow, October 10, is World Mental Health Day. Most teams track their work closely, with burndowns, velocity and cycle times. Far fewer ask, regularly and in a way people can answer honestly, how the team itself is doing.

A health check is a simple way to start. Each person rates a handful of areas, such as how easy it is to release, whether the team is learning, whether people get the support they need, and whether the work is fun. The ratings are rough on purpose: good, some concerns, or needs work, plus which way each is heading.

The idea was popularized by Henrik Kniberg and his colleagues at Spotify, who published their Squad Health Check model in 2014. Its strength is the trend more than the score. One rating tells you little; the same area slipping three checks in a row tells you something is wrong while there's still time to fix it.

Health checks in Scrums

Each person rates every area Awesome, Some concerns or Needs work, says which way it's heading, and can add a note.
Three sets of areas are built in: a squad health check, team readiness and a quick pulse. You can edit the areas before you start.
Ratings stay private until the facilitator shows the results. Checks are anonymous by default, and an anonymous check never shows who rated what, even afterwards.
The results put the weakest areas first, with the spread of ratings and the trend since the last check, and each area can get its own action items.
The team's Health tab charts every area across its last eight checks.

A health check's results in Scrums: each area with its average, its trend since the last check, and the spread of ratings — Each area with its trend since the last check.

A health check isn't a substitute for support when someone is struggling, and it doesn't replace a manager's one-to-ones. What it does is make it normal, every few weeks, to talk about how the work feels. That habit is worth building.

Try a health check in your browser, no account needed.