What you'll need
Remote
Video conferencing with screen sharing
Digital collaboration tool
In-person Optional
Butcher paper
Red, Yellow, Green markers
Notepads
Optional templates
Atlassian Templates
The 8 attributes of healthy teams
According to our years-long research and our work across hundreds of teams internally and externally, we have ascertained 8 attributes that make for a healthy and effective team.
1. Team cohesion
We have the mutual trust and respect necessary to be an effective team for healthy collaboration. We have a strong sense of connectedness between members.
2. Balanced team
We have the right people, with the right skills, in the right clearly-defined roles. This enables us to successfully deliver the value for which this team is accountable.
3. Encouraging difference
We seek and voice different viewpoints from diverse sources, both internally and externally, and we take the time to respectfully work through points of difference.
4. Shared understanding
We share an understanding of our mission and purpose and our key milestones to deliver our strategic plan effectively as a team.
5. Value and metrics
We understand the value we provide and the value back to the business, our definition of success and how that value is tracked and measured. We ultimately leverage our metrics to make decisions and action as necessary.
6. Suitable ways of working
Our ways of working together within the team enable us to do our jobs effectively, whether we are distributed or co-located. This includes the tools we use, how we meet and collaborate, and how we make decisions.
7. Engagement and support
It's clear to other teams how and when to engage with us, teams do this effectively and consistently receive the support they need to progress. We have a clear understanding of who we depend on, and who depends on us.
8. Continuous improvement
We always make time to celebrate our successes as well as earnestly reflect on, take action against, and fulfil our improvement opportunities. We have regular and intentional feedback loops within and outside of the team to make improvement decisions.
Instructions for running this Play
1. Prep 5 MIN
The Health Monitor is a Play wherein you and your team will discuss how well you meet these 8 attributes, and make a plan to continuously improve. Doing a Health Monitor on a regular basis will help you move along your journey to becoming a dream team.
As the meeting facilitator, book 60 - 90 minutes with your team to run this Play. Send your team a short description of what this Play will entail, and take the time to review the attributes on your own so that you can communicate them to your team. If you will be doing this Play remotely, make a copy of our Trello template for use during the Play and invite your team.
Tip
If your team includes 8 or more people, you might want to divide into sub-groups and work through the initial ratings for each attribute. Then, come back together and converge on full-team ratings.
2. Set the stage 5 MIN
Open the meeting by explaining to the team that as a group you’re creating a set of behavioral agreements to guide how to work together. Ask the team to:
- Keep an open, curious mind
- Practice active listening and encourage everyone to contribute
- Avoid interrupting or dominating the conversation
Voting criteria
Each of your participants will be asked to vote how well they think the team is doing against attributes with a “thumbs up” (green), “thumbs sideways (yellow), or “thumbs down” (red). How you think about red, yellow and green will be unique to your team. Use your intuition and don't worry about establishing standardized criteria for each color – that only distracts from the discussion.
Explain to your team that when an attribute is being considered, the team will be asked to add their vote, either to the digital collaboration space, or in person through a thumbs up, sideways, or down. A note taker should record the votes in the case of in-person meeting on a piece of butcher paper or whiteboard that all can see.
Tip: Questions you can ask to prompt discussion include
- Why did you vote the way you did for this attribute?
- What feedback on this attribute are you curious about or would like to learn more?
- Why do you think others voted this way?
3. Reflect 5 MIN
Introduce a moment of quiet reflection by asking attendees the following questions:
- What is important to us as a team? What behaviors can we agree to as a team?
- Think of teams that work together well. What do those teams do that we could adopt?
- What can we do on this team to avoid past mistakes from other teams?
Ask everyone to jot down their responses privately.
4. Draft agreements 10 MIN
Next, ask attendees to come up with one agreement that will lead to successfully working together as a team, using their reflections as a guide. Have everyone add their ideas to the digital document or whiteboard in the Brainstorm section.
If you have a small team (4 people or fewer) have each person write down two agreements.
TIP: PEOPLE, NOT PROCESS
This Play is about working together as people so if ideas around documenting technical processes come up, put those in the Parking Lot.
Follow-up
Schedule your next 4Ls Play
Once a quarter is a good start. Once you get the hang of it, try every two weeks, once a month, or after the end of a project cycle or sprint.
From our team, to yours
Stay up-to-date on the latest Plays, tips, and tricks with our monthly newsletter.
Choose a Health Monitor that fits your team
It's like a physical, but less... invasive
Leadership teams
You are influencers and decision-makers who work on the longer term vision and high-level initiatives. You're not executing the day-to-day work on projects, but leading people who are.
Project teams
Your mission is to deliver awesome outcomes for your customers – like shipping a new product feature, delivering a tactical project for "the business", or launching something new.
Service teams
Whether you're technical or non-technical, you're all about high volume and quality response. Your work is queue-based, and you likely have daily or weekly quotas.