# Team

> Assesses team health (forming/storming/norming/performing) and recommends where to invest next -- Pillar 5 of The Five Pillars. Use when standing up a new team, after a reorg/departure/turnover, or as a recurring quarterly team-health check.

- Skill: `clearmeasurelabs/team` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add clearmeasurelabs/team`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/clearmeasurelabs/team/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: ClearMeasureLabs (https://skillmd.com/u/clearmeasurelabs)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/clearmeasurelabs/team

---


# /team -- Optimize the Team

**Pillar 5 of The Five Pillars.** Assesses team health and recommends where to invest next.

## When to invoke

- Standing up a new team
- After a reorg, a departure, or a stretch of turnover
- As a recurring (quarterly) team-health check

## What it checks

1. **Stage** -- is the team forming, storming, norming, or performing? What evidence supports that read (conflict patterns, delivery consistency, onboarding friction)?
2. **Player quality** -- does each role have the direction, tools, and peer support to do A-player work? Where is someone set up to fail by circumstance rather than ability?
3. **Momentum** -- is there a recurring rhythm of progress reporting and realignment, or does the team only get attention when something breaks?

## Inputs

Team health doesn't live in an API either -- triangulate from what's available:

- **Direct signal** -- 1:1 notes, retro notes, or a short set of questions asked directly (pasted in or relayed by the user)
- **Indirect signal from the repo** -- commit/PR distribution (`git shortlog -sn`, review turnaround time, bus-factor concentration) as a proxy when direct signal isn't available; call out that it's a proxy, not a substitute for asking people
- **History** -- recent reorgs, departures, or onboarding noted in project memory/notes, since stage often resets after any of these

## Example output

> **Team health -- Atlas team**
>
> **Stage:** Storming. Evidence: two conflicting PR review styles causing repeated re-review cycles; a new hire (8 weeks in) still routes all questions through the tech lead instead of peers.
>
> **Player quality:** The new hire is set up to fail by circumstance, not skill -- no assigned onboarding buddy, and the one person who could mentor them is the same overloaded tech lead.
>
> **Momentum:** No recurring team retro; the last one was 3 months ago, right before the new hire joined.
>
> **Highest-leverage action:** Assign an onboarding buddy other than the tech lead this week -- it addresses both the "set up to fail" finding and starts spreading review load off one person.

## Reference

See [../../docs/FIVE_PILLARS.md](../../docs/FIVE_PILLARS.md#pillar-5-optimize-the-team).