Team Health & Engagement Surveys

If an organization is not agile at a basic team level, it’s going to be really difficult to build an agile enterprise. Teams are the basic building block of an organization, and an organization built on a foundation of disengaged teams is certain to be failing. Team dysfunction can lead to a cascade of problems within an organization, including serious issues like retention of key talent.  It is therefore important to get a reading on what is going on at a team level to be able to identify problems and address them.

Team Health & Engagement surveys measure how connected, motivated, and committed software developers are to their work and company. These surveys collect data on employee perceptions, sentiment, and satisfaction to identify strengths and weaknesses within teams and the broader organization. By analyzing engagement data, companies can pinpoint issues, track the impact of interventions, and implement strategies for improved culture, retention, and productivity,

The preferred approach involves the team members themselves assessing their own capabilities and practices, rather than relying on external evaluations. Assessments should be easy to take (ten minutes or less) and offer convenience (can be completed on any device). Organizations should be able to tailor survey questions to their specific needs and situation. Good surveys generate actionable data. Survey data should enable teams to see their strengths and areas needing improvement: How many people on the team think we consistently apply our Definition of Done?

A Likert scale is common way to structure surveys. Questions are based on a a five-point-point scale, with choices ranging from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree so the survey can provide a holistic view of people’s opinions. All Likert scales also include a mid-point response –  neither agree nor disagree, for those who are neutral on the subject matter.

Survey respondents should be able to provide input anonymously, and survey results should be easy to interpret and actionable. This is where a Likert-based survey helps.

Conducting a survey is a process, and as such it should have inputs and outputs, and follow a sequence of steps. In this sense, a survey is like a retrospective, conducted asynchronously, and follows a roughly similar set of steps:

1. Create the survey questionnaire and share it with the team
2. Collect the responses and generate insights
3. Decide what actions to take

The last step should of course be taken as a result of a conversation with the whole team.

If the survey is conducted regularly and the data saved, it will be possible to measure progress over time.

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