Product development team health check assessment

A practical tool for building high-performing teams.

I usually discuss how to improve the individual performance of direct reports, but in this article, I want to discuss something different: team performance. In addition, I provide a tool for assessing the team’s health so it can get to high performance.

Product Development Team Health Check Assessment

High-performing individuals do not (necessarily) lead to great teams

From 2008 to 2010, I saw an organization go from almost bankruptcy to breaking its performance records. The critical difference was that the leadership team was almost entirely replaced. It might look like a clear-cut people problem: good leaders replaced bad ones.

That would be wrong, though.

Both leadership teams were composed of high achievers and strong individuals. The key difference was that the successful team, the one who saved the organization from certain doom, was a team, while the non-performing one was a group of individuals. On one, the team was consciously built to be high-performing, while on the other, it was left to form itself, which led to suboptimal results.

This article aims to help leaders build their teams properly to achieve high performance.

Characteristics of a high-performing team

Many authors explored team performance. Most say similar things with slightly different spins. This is a good indication that there are common characteristics for high-performing teams. It’s not pseudo-science.

For the last 20 years, I have evolved my own flavor of team performance characteristics. It’s loosely based on Patrick Lencioni's book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, but a little different — as I picked up a thing or two in these last 20 years. The high-level characteristics are:

1. Clarity of team mission and purpose

2. Roles and responsibilities

3. Operating processes

4. Interpersonal relationships

5. Relationships with other teams

I will briefly discuss each, but if you just want to use the tool right now to assess your team’s health, go to the spreadsheet with all the details.

01. Clarity of team mission and purpose

You must know and agree on what you want to achieve as a team, how it is measured, what is not something you do, etc. All of this needs to be aligned with the overall organization, too.

Characteristics to evaluate:

1. The team mission is clear and all team members are committed to the mission

2. Team mission is aligned with the organization and product vision and strategy

3. The team sets clear and measurable outcomes early and well

4. Objectives and goals are clear to everyone on the team

In my example of the performing and non-performing teams, it was quite clear for the performing team that they were facing an existential threat and that cash flow was king, while the non-performing one didn’t instill this clear focus and had each member pulling in different directions.

02. Roles and responsibilities

Roles and responsibilities differ in cross-functional teams. Team members must agree on those roles, be competent at them, understand their intersections, and commit to the team goals even when their role negatively affects them.

Characteristics to evaluate:

1. Individuals' roles and responsibilities in the team are clear

2. Team members know what their peers are working on and how they contribute to the collective good of the team

3. Interdependencies within the team are clear

4. Every team member is committed to the team's objectives and goals, even if it negatively affects their personal goals

5. The team has people with the right talents to do what has to be done

6. Talent gaps are known to team members and the team has identified how to access the required talent

7. The right people are assigned to the right tasks

8. The team has the right leadership to achieve the required outcomes

In my example, the high-performing team had so much commitment that, for several months, two individuals of the team chose not to be paid (!) and lived off their own savings (!!)—the alternative was leaving the organization. It’s extreme, and I don’t recommend it, but I know they don’t regret it.

While on the non-performing team, some members would defend their own turfs to the detriment of the whole.

03. Operating processes

How the team works and how it uses its resources.

Characteristics to evaluate:

1. The team sets priorities while at the same time retaining flexibility

2. The team has tangible, visible, and meaningful measures to assess progress and performance

3. The team uses robust and timely team decision-making processes

4. The team learns from successes and failures

5. The team uses resources well (no wastage and no spinning wheels)

6. Team processes are “tight” and focused on team effectiveness and efficiency

7. Team ground rules are agreed upon and maintained

8. Meetings have clear purpose, agenda, and outputs

9. The team ends discussions with clear and specific decisions, resolutions and calls to action

10. The team's decisions, resolutions and calls to action get done promptly and are never forgotten or ignored

11. The team's meetings involve the right people

There were so many issues with this in the non-performing team, not the least of which was that ground rules were never agreed upon. This led to four of the six team members being romantically involved, which freaked out the team leader, who was very against this sort of thing. This was a frequent source of strain between team members and the leader.

04. Interpersonal relationships

It is all about understanding team members as people, building trust, etc.

Characteristics to evaluate:

1. All team members value one another’s strengths and accept each other’s limitations

2. All team members give positive and negative feedback to one another

3. All team members are comfortable discussing their weaknesses and mistakes.

4. All team members ask for help without hesitation

5. All team members know about one another's personal lives and are comfortable discussing them

6. All team members quickly and genuinely apologize to one another when they say or do something inappropriate or possibly damaging to the team

7. Unacceptable team and individual behaviour is called early

8. Team members hold each other mutually accountable for outcomes

9. Communication inside the team is open, honest and complete

10. Team members earn trust by doing what they promise

11. People collaborate rather than compete with one another

12. All team members are slow to seek credit for their own contributions, but quick to point out those of others

On the performing team, we were so close that we developed a deep friendship, with people still in touch after 15 years. For example, 2 of the 5 team members crossed the Atlantic to attend my wedding.

On the non-performing team, some interpersonal tensions were quite hard to reconcile.

05. Relationships with other teams

It would be beautiful if a high-performing team just depended on itself to perform, but in most organizations, there will be a myriad of stakeholders and other teams that impact the work.

Characteristics to evaluate:

1. Interdependencies/interfaces between teams are negotiated and clearly understood

2. Information is willingly shared between teams in a timely manner

3. Teams break down barriers to enable the respective teams to achieve their goals

4. Teams operate in a spirit of collaboration, not competition

5. The team is not blocked by other teams to achieve its objectives and goals

In my experience, this one is usually the hardest one to change when it is going badly.

How to use the product development team health check assessment

There are many ways of using it, for example, as a leader's reflection tool on what to improve in their team or as an anonymous form for later discussion. However, from my experience, what works best is the entire team getting together, reading a single statement, and then voting simultaneously if they think it's 1, 2, 3, or 4. When there are different perceptions, ask the people with the most extreme answers to explain why they voted like this. Finally, you can re-vote or have a group consensus on the average score.

After the assessment, pick a few items with the worst scores and discuss ideas for improving them. Then, commit to actions with a clear responsibility and deadline.

Re-run the assessment after some time (I prefer to do it once per quarter).

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