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Atlassian

Atlassian Team Playbook

Run tomorrow · Primary + examples

Atlassian Team Health Monitor

A facilitator-grade health check that is useful only if the red signals turn into named repairs immediately.

Best opened when

Teams that can feel friction but cannot yet name where the damage really sits.

What to steal first

The visible health signal and the rule that one red must become a named repair action.

What not to copy

It is not an employee engagement survey.

Closest move

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ Style)

Core operating sequence

Play anatomy

The Health Monitor gives a team a shared surface for naming where something is actually breaking down. It uses a fixed set of health dimensions — trust, clarity, ownership, momentum, quality — so different people in the room can signal their read of the same criteria before dominant voices interpret the conversation.

The useful product is not the scorecard. It is the one or two repair commitments that follow. The visible signal is only valuable because it creates enough shared acknowledgment of a red that the repair cannot be easily avoided. Without that step, the exercise is morale polling.

What does not transfer: the specific Atlassian dimensions, the full facilitation ceremony, and the quarterly cadence. What transfers is the structure — visible individual signal before discussion, focus on the most costly disagreement, and a named repair action before the session ends.

Run it in the room

A clean first pass you can run

Participants
The intact team plus one facilitator who can keep the discussion honest. 4–12 people.
Timing
10 minutes to signal. 20 minutes on the critical gap. 15–30 minutes to name repairs and assign owners.
Prep
Agree on 6–8 health dimensions in plain language before the session. Decide how you will capture repair commitments visibly — not in hidden notes.
  1. 1Introduce each dimension in one sentence. Have everyone signal their current state simultaneously — red, yellow, or green — before anyone speaks. Do not allow discussion before signals are visible.
  2. 2Find the biggest disagreement or most costly red. Do not work through every dimension in equal time. The room's attention goes to the one gap that matters most.
  3. 3Ask what specific team behavior or working condition that red is pointing at. Not feelings — observable things. What would change if this were fixed?
  4. 4Name one repair move with one owner and a date when the team will check whether it changed anything. If the room produces three repairs, narrow to one before closing.

You leave with

A health snapshot with one named repair commitment, one owner, and one review date on the calendar.

First failure point: The session ends with a list of concerns and no named owner for any of them. The repair step was skipped in favour of more discussion.

What good looks like

If this is working, these are the signals you should be able to point to

  • At least one red signal became a named repair commitment with an owner before the session closed.
  • The follow-up date is on the calendar and the team can say what would change if the repair worked.
  • No health dimension was flagged and then left without a prioritisation decision.
  • The team can identify which one gap most affected their ability to deliver in the last sprint.

How it worked there

The conditions that made it hold

Atlassian built this as part of its Team Playbook because its teams were distributed and needed a portable, low-ceremony way to surface damage before it became structural. The visible signal format lowered the cost of candor in rooms where some participants would default to polite understatement.

The method held because Atlassian used it as a working tool rather than a survey artifact. The repair mechanism was real — team leads were expected to act on the output within the sprint. Without that operating norm, the sessions become what they become everywhere else: a scheduled check-in that produces a health snapshot nobody returns to.

What not to copy · Failure modes

What goes wrong when this is copied

The session ends with colors on a wall and nothing changes. The visible signal is not the product — the repair commitment is. Teams often run the Health Monitor as a diagnostic and then dissolve without a named owner and a follow-up date. The score becomes a snapshot that leadership files quietly rather than a trigger for action.

The strongest red is the most important part, and it is usually ignored. Rooms tend to pull toward the softer, more consensus-friendly issues. The uncomfortable dimension — the one where people disagree sharply or where leadership is implicated — is often normalized or deprioritized. That is the dimension the session should have started from.

Running it on a fixed calendar creates the appearance of improvement without the substance. Quarterly Health Monitors with no repair evidence teach teams that the ritual is performative. A session is only worth running again if something changed because of the last one.

Weak signals to watch for

  • It is not an employee engagement survey.
  • It is not a substitute for removing structural blockers the team already understands clearly.
  • Do not run the scorecard without a near-term repair mechanism.
  • Do not archive the output as a hidden morale dashboard for leadership consumption.

Closest Waypoint move

What to open next

Primary route

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ Style)

Use LDJ when the health issue is already known and the room needs a structured route from friction to actions fast.

Use this when you need structured team diagnostics and can accept running a full session rather than just naming the problem.

Sources and confidence

Primary + examples

Reviewed by Discovery Waypoint Editorial Team · 2026-04-04