Ever been handed the results of a corporate survey with little guidance on what to do next? Or is your organisation working on several initiatives without having a clear understanding of what the team really needs? We understand the frustration. The Team Health Pulse is not about high-level reporting, benchmarking, or merely identifying ‘problems’. It’s designed to empower your team with clear, actionable insights that drive meaningful improvement.
Unlike tools that focus solely on engagement or leadership, the Team Health Pulse gets to the heart of how your team functions—whether it’s about collaboration, rewards, fostering a culture of trust, sparking innovation, or balancing efficiency with fun. This tool isn’t for judging; it’s for celebrating teams that have the courage to embrace opportunities for growth and improvement.
It invites you to transform your team dynamics, boost performance, and create an environment where everyone thrives—because real change happens when teams are empowered, not just managed.
Who is it for?
The Team Health Pulse is designed for teams ready to reflect, improve, and elevate their performance. It offers a clear view of where you stand, pinpointing critical areas for growth to help you become more effective.
We view large organisations as networks of interconnected teams. Whether you are in a management board or part of any other team, the Team Health Pulse applies to you, treating each group with the same focus and attention.
When several teams participate, common themes may emerge, potentially revealing opportunities to launch broader Operational Excellence initiatives. As a strong advocate of Agile thinking, I belief the key to success lies in breaking these down into manageable, bite-sized improvements that can create lasting change.
Why the Team Health Pulse?
Teamwork is at the core of any success, yet organisations often place more emphasis on either the organisation as a whole or individual performance. Teamwork, unfortunately, is treated like a step-sister—learned only by doing, without the proper guidance.
But is that really enough?
How often have you received training on how to conduct effective meetings? How often have you been coached on collaboration? What does it take for a team to become greater than the sum of its parts?
Great teamwork doesn’t just happen—it’s consciously crafted.
Unlike other assessments, the Team Health Pulse is grounded in fundamental principles, making it both actionable and comprehensive. These principles cover every essential aspect of teamwork—not just well-being, not just processes, and not just innovation.
How does it work?
The assessment is simple yet powerful. It consists of four domains, each with seven questions, evaluated on a Likert scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree).
The Team Health Pulse is designed to help teams—whether newly formed or highly experienced—assess where they stand and identify opportunities for improvement. By comparing team members’ responses, it highlights areas of alignment or divergence. These insights foster meaningful conversations, uncovering blind spots and opportunities for growth.
When you decide to use the Team Health Pulse, each team member will receive a link to the survey, which can be filled out anonymously. A fictional or real team name is used to group the results, ensuring anonymity while providing clear insights for your team.
Once the data is collected, results are visually represented as heat maps. These serve as the foundation for a team conversation (which can be facilitated if needed). The goal of this discussion is to dive deeper into how individuals interpreted specific questions and why they gave certain ratings. Through this shared understanding, the team will highlight three key areas for improvement—using methods such as dot voting.
These three focus areas form the basis for the next phase: defining actionable initiatives. Consider these initiatives as mini-projects targeting specific improvements. At this stage, we provide additional support: for each of the three selected areas, we suggest two proven practices that have helped other teams. The team can then choose 1–3 initiatives that resonate most.
The final step is to ‘Paint Done’—clarifying exactly what success looks like for each initiative. This gives your team a clear, actionable strategy to follow.
To maintain growth and ensure sustained improvement, it’s important to regularly review how the team is progressing. Ideally, this process should be integrated with your existing team cycles.
You can repeat this process quarterly or bi-annually to continuously enhance team performance.
Ready to strengthen the heart of your team? We’re here to help!
About the Team Health Pulse
The Team Health Pulse was developed by Maarten Van Elsen in 2024. It is in beta-testing which implies:
- It is being tested with actual teams. Let us know if you want to participate.
- It is semi-automated. The manual step requires an intervention. Hence, the report is not immediately available.
- There will we various changes to improve its value.
After all, we need to walk-the-talk and apply the principles of Agility & Lean Start-Up to our own services. Consider this assessment a MVP.