Team Sentiment practices track the mood of a team and provide a mechanism for team members to rapidly feed back, either publically or anonymously, when their mood has changed.

Team sentiment practices enable problems to be identified, radiated and addressed early. They enable the team to quickly discuss where one or more team members is suddenly troubled by the direction their work is going and can also provide an information radiator to assess the overall team health and feeling.

Team sentiment practices are often introduced where there is a strong sense of servant leadership in the working environment.

Who do you need?

• Someone to introduce and facilitate the team sentiment practice(s).
• A cross functional team to continously use the practice. Multiple teams can each use their own practice and multiple resulting artefacts can be used to roll up and radiate wider organisational moood trends.

Suggested Time

• 5-10 minutes to introduce and make first use of the practice.
• Ad hoc updates performed on an ongoing basis (with facilitator driving the continuous adoption, use and value of the practice).

Difficulty

• Facilitator - Medium
• Participants - Easy

Facilitation Materials Needed

To use "Mood Marbles" as the Team Sentiment practice

• A number of containers to hold enough marbles (can be drawings of containers on large flip-chart paper)
• Red and Green Marbles (can be sticky notes) to start with. Other colors can be introduced.

Mood Marble containers are placed in a strategic place where all team members will see and walk pass regularly (for example, near the door or on the way to the bathroom).

Team are encouraged to think about their current mood. Start with positive (green) and negative (red) and each team member adds a marble to the container that reflects their mood.

Team members are regularly reminded they can change their mood marble at any time.