🩺💚 Vital Signs: Team Health Check
Take the pulse of our squad, celebrate the healthy beats, diagnose the aches, and prescribe actions for a thriving sprint.
Template Columns
💚 Healthy Beats
Highlight the strong, thriving practices that kept our team’s pulse steady.
Base column: What Went Well🚑 Critical Alerts
Identify the symptoms and setbacks that disrupted our team’s wellbeing.
Base column: What Went Wrong🩹 Healing Plans
Outline actionable remedies to boost our team’s health and performance.
Base column: What We Want to ImproveAbout this template
A health‑check style retrospective that celebrates strengths, surfaces pain points, and creates concrete improvement actions.
When to use this template
Use when you want a quick pulse on team morale and process health, especially after a few sprints or before a major milestone.
How to facilitate
Set the stage by explaining the Vital Signs metaphor and the goal of measuring team health
Create three columns on the board labeled Healthy Beats, Critical Alerts, and Healing Plans
Ask participants to silently write up to three observations per column on colored sticky notes (5 minutes)
Collect the notes, group similar items together, and discuss each group briefly to surface common themes
Prioritize the top three Critical Alerts and brainstorm specific Healing Plans for each
Turn each Healing Plan into a SMART action, assign an owner, set a deadline, and close with a confidence vote
Pro Tips
Match sticky‑note colors to column colors to reinforce visual cues
Limit each participant to three items per column to keep the conversation focused
Use an anonymous digital poll for sensitive alerts to maintain psychological safety
Frame Healing Plans as SMART actions with clear owners and due dates
End with a quick pulse check where everyone rates confidence in the plan on a 1‑5 scale
FAQ
What if team members are hesitant to share negative feedback?
Emphasize psychological safety, assure that alerts focus on processes not people, and offer an anonymous input option to encourage openness.
How many items should we aim for in each column?
Target 5‑7 total items per column to keep the discussion manageable while still capturing diverse perspectives.
How do we turn Healing Plans into actionable steps?
Apply the SMART framework: make each plan specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time‑bound, then assign a clear owner.
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At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
4-12 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
What Went Well, What Went Wrong, What We Want to Improve
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective