The Spotify Squad Health Check Model is a popular tool software engineering teams use to support continuous improvement. It's a simple, visually rich way to check in with your team. This post talks about how the model works and how you can use it.
What is the Spotify Squad Health Check Model?
The Spotify Squad Health Check is about creating space for teams to reflect on how things are going and make meaningful improvements. It uses a set of predefined dimensions to evaluate team health. As the original blog post puts it, the model consists of three steps:
- "Run workshops where members of a squad discuss and assess their current situation based on a number of different perspectives (quality, fun, value, etc)."
- "Create a graphical summary of the result"
- "Use the data to help the squads improve"
The beauty of this model is its simplicity and the use of a graphical summary. You get just enough structure, and the graphical summary gives the team a shared starting point. The group can quickly identify areas to focus on and spend more time discussing what's most important for them.
If you want to learn more about the Spotify Model, this is the original Spotify blog post and this is the 2023 update.
Using a tool to run the Health Check Model
If you use TeamHealthCheck.io to run your health check, your graphical summary will look like the image below. Depending on your team's focus, you can spend more time discussing the areas for improvement or celebrating what is going well.
You can also compare current and past results. You'll quickly understand in what areas things are improving.
The visuals above won't solve your teams' problems, but they can serve as a foundation for productive conversations.