A free team roles test: rate 36 statements and get a full written report on the roles you naturally play in a group. Then build a role map for your whole team, with no sign-up.
When a problem looks stuck, I am usually the one who suggests coming at it from a different angle
I will say so plainly when I think the team is avoiding a hard question
I notice when someone on the team is frustrated or left out, often before they say so
Before I back a plan, I want to see what could go wrong with it
Once something is agreed, I like to turn it into steps, owners and dates
What you get
A full written report in six parts, free, with no email. Save it as a PDF, or send the link to your team and add it to the role map. See a sample report.
All nine roles scored and drawn as one shape, what your first role looks like from the inside, and what your second role adds to it.
What gets the best from you and what backfires, written for your colleagues, plus the moments when a team most needs your role and the moments it gets in the way.
Five strengths and the four costs that travel with them, six team moments from kick-off to retrospective, your pattern under pressure, and how you work with head, heart and hands roles.
What it measures
A team role is the kind of contribution you tend to make when you work in a group: supplying the idea, questioning it, connecting people, keeping the pace, or getting the work over the line. It describes a preference, not a skill, and most people hold two or three.
Head · Ideas, judgement and depth
New angles and first ideas when the obvious answer is not good enough.
A cool second look: the flaw in the plan, found before it is expensive.
Depth in one field, kept current, available when the problem demands it.
Heart · People inside and outside the team
Contacts, examples and tools from outside the team’s own walls.
Shared direction: who is doing what, and what the group is trying to decide.
Attention to how people are doing, and repair when two of them collide.
Hands · Pace, structure and completion
Momentum: the push for a decision when the group would rather keep talking.
Plans turned into steps, owners and dates that actually hold.
The last ten percent: the detail checked, the loose end tied, the date met.
With your team
There is no team account to set up. Every result is a link, and the map is built from the links, in the organiser’s browser.
Step 1 · about 5 minutes each
Send the team this page. Each person rates the 36 statements on their own phone or laptop and lands on a full report of their first and second role.
Step 2 · one minute
Each person copies the link to their report, from the address bar or the Share button, into the team chat. The link holds their nine scores and nothing else.
Step 3 · 30 minutes together
Paste the links into the team role map below, with a name in front of each. It shows who holds each role, which roles are open, and who is nearest to an open one.
Three questions for the session
Keep the conversation on the work. An open role is rarely a reason to hire; it is usually a reason to agree who covers that contribution on the next project, and to say thank you to the person who has been covering it unasked.
Running a workshop without laptops? The printable team roles test (PDF) has the statements, a hand-scoring grid and a blank team map. To write down what you agree, use the team charter builder.
Team role map
Paste the link to each person’s report. The map shows who holds each role first and second, which roles nobody holds, and who is nearest to an open one.
Where the link comes from
Each person finishes the test and lands on their report. The address of that page is their result link: they can copy it from the address bar, or press Share on the report and copy the link there. Include your own. The map is worked out on this page, and nothing is sent to a server.
Read this before you rely on it
Where we stand
The idea that teams need different contributions, and fail in predictable ways when one is missing, has held up since the 1980s. The questionnaires built on it have held up less well: the best-known one asks people to rank statements against each other, which makes its scores hard to evaluate and impossible to compare between people. We wrote this test to be rated, not ranked, and to be open about what it is: a new, short, self-reported quiz with no validation study behind it.
What it is
What it is not
Roles answer who does what. Traits answer what people are like, and they are what the research on team composition is written in. If you want the measured picture, each person can take the Big Five in about eight minutes and the group can compare results on one live team map. Our comparison of Belbin team roles and the Big Five sets out where the two approaches agree and where they part.
Common questions
No. This is an original team roles test written by SeeMyPersonality, with its own nine roles, its own 36 statements and its own scoring. It is not the Belbin Team Roles assessment, it does not use Belbin’s role names or questionnaire, and we are not affiliated with Belbin. If your organisation needs an official Belbin report, it comes from Belbin or one of its accredited practitioners.
Not an official one. Belbin states on its own site that there is no legal free version of its inventory, and its reports combine a self-perception questionnaire with observer assessments from colleagues. Free team roles tests, this one included, are separate instruments that ask a similar question: which contributions do you naturally make in a group? Ours is free, needs no sign-up, and ends in a full written report with all nine scores, not a single label.
Three families of three. Head: Spark (new ideas), Analyst (judgement) and Expert (depth in one field). Heart: Scout (contacts and examples from outside), Conductor (shared direction) and Harmoniser (relationships and repair). Hands: Driver (momentum), Builder (turning plans into dependable work) and Finisher (detail and deadlines). Most people score clearly on two or three and can flex into others when the team needs it.
A personality test describes how you tend to think, feel and behave across your whole life. A team roles test asks a narrower question: what do you usually contribute when you work in a group? The two overlap, because a curious person often ends up supplying ideas, but a role also depends on the team you are in and the job you hold. For a measured picture of the people rather than the roles, use a trait test such as the Big Five.
Two is enough to draw one and four to eight is where it becomes useful. Each person holds two roles on the map, their first and their second, so a team of four covers eight of the nine at most and open roles are normal in a small team. The map holds up to 30 people. Above about twelve, read it by sub-team.
No. This is a self-reflection quiz for teams that already exist, with no validation study behind it and no norms. It does not measure skill or predict job performance, and rejecting or selecting someone on a role label would be both unfair and indefensible. If an open role turns into a decision to hire, use a selection process built for that purpose.
Yes. The printable PDF has the same 36 statements as the on-page test, a scoring grid that adds up the nine roles by hand (nine statements are worded in reverse, and the grid shows how to score them), one-line descriptions of each role and a blank team role map. It suits workshops without laptops. The on-page version does the adding up for you, writes the full report and draws the map.
Treat it as a well-structured conversation starter. Every statement is rated on its own rather than ranked against the others, so two people’s scores for the same role are comparable, which is not true of forced-ranking inventories. One statement in each role is worded in reverse, so agreeing with everything gives a flat profile and not nine high scores. But the test is new, short and self-reported, and nobody has published reliability or validity figures for it. The research on team role questionnaires in general is mixed, and the report sets that out with its sources. If a result does not sound like you, you are the better source.
Keep reading
About this test
Michael Hodge, founder of SeeMyPersonality, wrote the nine role definitions and the 36 statements, and built the scoring that runs in your browser. More about the author.
Belbin is a registered trademark of its owner. This test is an independent work: it is not the Belbin Team Roles assessment, it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Belbin, and it uses none of Belbin’s role names, questionnaire items or report text.
Start here
Five minutes each. One map of who does what.
Take the test, send the page to your team, and paste their report links into the map.