Example polls
Paste any of these into the message box in Slack.
Scale from 1 to 5. An anonymous energy check that closes when the meeting starts (Premium for the close).
/poll "Check-in: energy level today?" "Running on empty" "Low" "Okay" "Good" "Full battery" scale anonymous close after 1 hour
Premium: closing automatically
AnonymousClose automatically: after 1 hour
Choice poll. A traffic-light check-in. Free.
/poll "Green, yellow or red for this week?" "Green, on track" :large_green_circle: "Yellow, a bit stretched" :large_yellow_circle: "Red, need help" :red_circle: anonymous
Free
Anonymous
Short text. An open round, answered before the meeting so you can read them out.
/poll "Check-in: what is one thing on your mind that is not on the agenda?" short text
Free
One-word and one-click check-ins
For a big meeting or a short one. Everyone answers in seconds.
- One word for how you are arriving today?
- Energy level from 1 to 5?
- Green, yellow or red for this week?
- Weather report: sunny, cloudy or stormy?
- How full is your plate: light, right or overflowing?
- Coffee count so far today?
- Which emoji is your week so far?
- Ready to focus, or still finishing something?
- Rate yesterday from 1 to 5.
- What is your focus word for today?
Quick round questions
For teams of up to eight, one sentence each.
- What is one thing on your mind that is not on the agenda?
- What was a win since we last met?
- What would make this meeting worth your time?
- What is something you are looking forward to?
- What is one thing you learned this week?
- What is taking up most of your head space right now?
- Who helped you this week?
- What is one thing you need from this group today?
- What is something small that went well?
- What did you finish since last time?
Questions for retros and planning
- How confident are you in this sprint's goal, from 1 to 5?
- What surprised you since the last planning?
- What is one risk we are not talking about?
- What should we stop doing?
- What is one thing you would change about how we work?
- Where did you lose the most time this week?
- What is a decision you are waiting on?
- Which part of the plan worries you most?
- What made you proud of the team recently?
- If this project were a weather forecast, what would it be?
Light questions for warm-ups
- What is the best thing you ate this week?
- What are you reading, watching or listening to?
- Where would you be if you were not here?
- What is a small thing that made you smile today?
- What did you do last weekend in three words?
- What is the view from your window right now?
- What is a skill you would like to learn this year?
- Which song is stuck in your head?
- What is your go-to snack for long meetings?
- What is one thing you are grateful for this week?
Run the check-in as a poll
Post the check-in in the meeting's Slack channel an hour before it starts. People answer when they have a moment, and you open the meeting with the result instead of going round the room. That saves five minutes in a meeting of ten.
For energy and mood questions, make the poll anonymous so people answer honestly, and use
a scale so you get an average to compare week to week. For open questions, use short text and read two or three answers aloud. Add close after 1 hour (Premium) so the poll
closes when the meeting starts. For a weekly meeting, make it a recurring poll (Premium).
Use the answers. If half the room says "overflowing", cut the agenda. A check-in nobody acts on turns into a ritual people skip. For feedback after the meeting, use the meeting feedback template.
Questions
What is a check-in question?
A short question at the start of a meeting that everyone answers before the agenda. It gets people talking and tells you how the room is doing.
Should check-in answers be anonymous?
For energy, stress or workload, yes: add anonymous. For light questions or wins, keep
names so people can follow up with each other.
How long should a check-in take?
Under five minutes. If you run it as a Slack poll before the meeting, it takes none of the meeting itself.
How is this different from a standup?
A standup asks about work: what you did and what is blocking you. A check-in asks how people are arriving. For async standups, see the daily standup check-in.
Related
- Meeting feedback poll for Slack
When a recurring meeting has been running for a while and you aren't sure it still earns its slot in everyone's calendar.
- Team mood check-in poll for Slack
When you want an early, honest signal on how the team is feeling, before it shows up as missed deadlines or resignations.
- Daily standup check-in poll for Slack
When your team is spread across time zones or calendars and a live standup costs more than it returns, but you still want a daily read on progress and blockers.
- Meeting agenda topics poll for Slack
A day or two before a team meeting, planning session or one-to-one series, so the agenda reflects what people need to discuss rather than what the organiser remembered.
- Sprint retrospective poll for Slack
At the end of every sprint, before the retro meeting, so people can answer honestly and you walk in with the themes already on the table.
- Slack polls for managers and team leads
A team lead's job is mostly two things: deciding, and finding out what you do not know. Both get easier with a handful of well-timed polls. The point is not to vote on everything. It is to stop spending a meeting on questions a poll answers in an hour, and to hear the things your team would not say to your face.