The Risk of “Meh” Health Checks

Spotify has been running squad health checks for nearly a decade, with an estimated 5,000-plus sessions since the model was first introduced in 2014. At least 60% of teams now run them on a regular cadence using their preferred question sets. The approach is familiar: ask predefined questions covering technical, team, and product health; run debrief workshops to discuss results and choose actions; and aggregate scores into multi-team visualisations that help leadership spot patterns.

The problem is that familiarity breeds staleness. After running the same checks repeatedly, teams can treat them as just another item on their to-do list. Without care, the conversation after a survey drifts towards results rather than people’s experiences, the discussion becomes transactional, or teams rush to generate “fix-it” actions at the expense of deeper insight. If the only motivation is feeding data to leaders far removed from the team, the health check misses its real purpose: improving the team’s own self-awareness.

To avoid those dead-end sessions, three areas matter most: customising the check wisely, digging deep during the conversation, and following through afterwards.

Customise Wisely

One size does not fit all. The Spotify Health Check model works internally, but teams may benefit from experimenting with other frameworks—for example, a check based on Google’s re:Work research that drives conversations around psychological safety, structure and clarity, dependability, meaning, and impact. Some teams build their own checks from their tech principles, and some design them specifically for leadership.

Whatever base model you choose, the questions themselves can be tailored to what matters to the team right now. A team that recently dealt with quality issues might ask how well the remediations they put in place have improved things. A team with many new joiners might ask about knowledge of the systems they now own. A newly distributed team might ask how well their ways of working support them.

Customisation also needs to respect the wider context. If leadership aggregates results into a larger visualisation, the check still needs to include the standard questions that feed that system. Know what leaders are looking for and make sure the team’s custom questions don’t crowd out that shared data.

Dig Deeper, Not Wider

Facilitation guides are useful for structure, but the priority should be enabling a deeper conversation—not working through every item. Teams tend to approach health check discussions the same way they approach all their meetings. If they usually rush to solutions or talk in circles, they’ll do it here too. A well-facilitated conversation about one topic that truly matters to the team will generally yield better results than trying to force-fit every agenda item.

A handful of habits make the difference between a superficial check and one that builds trust and empathy:

  • Ask “what,” not “why.” “Why” often sounds confrontational and puts people on the defensive. “What” and “how” sound more curious and objective.
  • Say “Is there something else?” not “Is there anything else?” The word “anything” makes people filter and self-scrutinise. Asking for “something” tends to bypass that filter, so people are more likely to share what’s actually on their minds.
  • Open with open questions. “Where have you seen this working?”, “What’s important to you about this?”, and “What would be needed for you to score this question higher?” all move the conversation beyond first perspectives and towards insights and empathy.
  • Give space. Count slowly if needed—leave a gap for people to fill rather than filling it yourself. If you want to contribute, say clearly that you’re taking off your facilitator hat.
  • Watch the energy. If the room suddenly goes quiet or tenses up, get curious about it. Ask the team what they noticed. If a team can’t discuss a topic, they can’t improve it.

Close Well

Getting through everything on the plan is rarely realistic, and it shouldn’t be the goal. Cut conversations short to keep the session on a rigid schedule, and you lose the value of the depth you’ve created. It’s fine—and often better—to leave actions unexplored. Hearing each other’s perspectives keeps the topic front of mind, and better actions often emerge after a break from thinking about the problem. Following up a few days later can be more effective than forcing a decision in the session.

What matters is giving the conversation closure. Ask each person to share one insight and one thing they will do differently as a result of the discussion. Even a simple acknowledgement that time has run out helps dissolve tension and gives everyone permission to stop.

Follow Through

The health check isn’t done when the workshop ends. Everyone goes back to their normal routine, and that’s exactly when the session’s value gets lost if you don’t follow up.

Debrief with the team’s leads—usually the engineering manager and product manager—on what you learned. Was there something that didn’t get discussed that needs attention? Are there items to raise in one-to-ones? Are there meetings to book or actions to add to the backlog? If no actions emerged, consider a check-in at stand-up after the team has had time to absorb the conversation.

Leaders should also look at the aggregated results across teams to identify broader patterns. If your organisation doesn’t already do this, a lightweight version works: have managers bring their top three team health priorities to a meeting and discuss how to tackle them at the organisational level.

None of this requires a new framework. It starts from the original Squad Health Check model, applied with more attention to fit, depth, and follow-through.