Pulse Check

Pulse Check is how team members report on objective progress. Each objective is rated from 1 (Struggling) to 5 (Exceeding), providing early warning when objectives are at risk while protecting psychological safety through anonymity.

How Sentiment Works

Each week, team members vote on their team's objectives using a 1-5 scale:

Score	Label	Meaning
1	Struggling	Significant concerns - major blockers
2		Needs improvement - behind schedule
3	On Track	Progressing as expected
4		Good progress - ahead of schedule
5	Exceeding	Exceptional progress

Scores are converted into a sentiment percentage (0-100%) for analytics. Wave managers see this as a color-coded heat map where low scores appear red, mid-range amber, and high scores green.

Submitting Your Vote

When to Vote

• Vote once per week on each of your team's objectives
• Voting window opens at the start of each week
• You can update your vote until 7 days after the week ends

How to Vote

1. Navigate to your team's objectives in the wave
2. Find the sentiment voting section
3. Select your score (1-5)
4. Optionally add a comment with context
5. Submit - your vote is recorded anonymously

Adding Comments

Comments provide context for your vote:

Good comments:

• "Waiting on legal review - expected by Thursday"
• "Shipped ahead of schedule, starting next milestone"
• "Lost two team members, adjusting scope"

Avoid:

• Comments that identify you (if anonymity matters to you)
• Vague statements like "things are fine"

Anonymity

Pulse Check is designed for psychological safety.

What's Protected

• Your identity is never shown to team leads or admins
• Your vote is never linked to you in reports
• Aggregate data only - leads see averages and counts, not individuals

What Leaders See

Team leads and admins see:

• Sentiment Pulse - overall sentiment percentage with week-over-week change
• Sentiment Heat Map - color-coded grid showing sentiment per team per week
• Sentiment Trends - line chart tracking sentiment over the wave period with projections
• Number of votes submitted (submission rate)
• Comments (without attribution)
• Overall trend direction (improving, stable, or declining)

They cannot see:

• Who voted what
• Individual scores by person
• Which comment came from whom

Viewing Sentiment Data

Team Members

You can see:

• Your own submitted votes
• Your team's aggregate sentiment

Team Leads

Team leads see aggregate data for their teams:

• Weekly sentiment percentage and trends over time
• Objectives with low sentiment scores
• Historical data for the past 12 weeks

Organization View

Administrators see sentiment across all teams:

• Which objectives have concerning trends
• Teams that consistently report problems
• Organization-wide sentiment health

When to Give Low Scores

Use 1 or 2 when:

• Blockers exist that the team can't resolve alone
• Scope is unrealistic given current progress
• Dependencies are failing - other teams or external factors
• Resources are insufficient - need more people or time
• Quality is suffering - shipping but cutting corners

Don't use low scores for:

• Political signaling
• Punishing leadership for decisions you disagree with
• Problems you haven't tried to solve first

Team Readiness Requirement

Sentiment voting requires your team to complete readiness:

• Team must be approved and live in the wave
• This ensures teams have objectives before voting begins
• Team leads complete readiness during wave preparation

Best Practices

For Team Members

• Vote honestly - Anonymity protects you; honesty helps everyone
• Vote consistently - Weekly data creates trends that matter
• Add context - A comment explaining a low score is more useful than the score alone
• Update if things change - You can revise within the voting window

For Team Leads

• Review weekly - Don't let sentiment data go stale
• Follow up on low scores - Acknowledge concerns in team meetings
• Don't investigate - Resist trying to identify who voted what
• Act on patterns - Single weeks matter less than trends

For Organizations

• Protect anonymity - Never attempt to de-anonymize votes
• Respond to trends - Teams stop voting if nothing changes
• Celebrate high scores - Recognize teams doing well
• Support low scores - Offer help, not criticism

Sentiment vs. Progress

Sentiment and key result progress are different:

Sentiment	Key Result Progress
How the team feels	What the metrics show
Subjective assessment	Objective measurement
Anonymous voting	Attributed updates
Weekly snapshot	Continuous tracking

Both matter. A team can have good metrics but low sentiment (expecting problems ahead), or poor metrics but high sentiment (recovery plan working).

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Next steps: Vote on your team's objectives from the Wave dashboard during an active wave.