Scrum Events

The kinds of session

The product calls one Scrum Event a session. A session belongs to one sprint and to the team that owns that sprint. Backlog Refinement can also run at project level, with no sprint and no team. A session is scheduled, open, closed or canceled. Only an open session records changes and accepts notes.

A session's artifact is everything it holds: the record of what changed, the notes people write, and the cards and feedback on the screens that have them. The product uses that word in its own messages, and this page uses it the same way.

Daily Scrum

The Daily Scrum lives on the board, beside the columns. You start it there and close it there. See The board and the Daily Scrum.

Sprint Review

The Sprint Review lives on the Sprint Review screen, with the Increment and the feedback. See Sprint Review.

Retrospective

The Retrospective lives on the Retrospective screen, with its four columns. See Retrospective.

Sprint Planning, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Closing

The product records these kinds, but no screen starts one or shows one. The Sprint Planning screen fills a sprint and starts no session.

The product offers no way to hold a Sprint Review or a Retrospective yet. No screen creates one, opens one or closes one. Those two screens show a session that already exists. Before one exists, each screen says that no session has been held yet and explains what it shows once a sprint has run.

When several sessions of one kind exist, the screen shows the open one, or else the newest. A canceled session never appears. Once two or more exist, links headed Sprint 1, Sprint 2 and so on appear above the screen. Those links are the only way to reach an earlier session.

A band under the title shows the session's state on the Sprint Review and Retrospective screens. An open session says so and names what the screen offers. A closed Sprint Review says This session is closed. Its record stands as it was. A closed Retrospective says This session is closed. Its board is a record now, not a workspace. A session that nobody opened yet appears closed on both screens and offers no editor.

The band is not the only state message. On the Retrospective screen, a session that is not open adds a second line below the four columns, for people who hold Write in Scrum Events. That line says a Retrospective does not reopen, and it points to Action Items and to the backlog. The Sprint Review screen shows no such line.

Start a session

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The Daily Scrum is the one session you start from a screen. The control is on the board, below the columns, when a sprint is active and no Daily Scrum is open. It is absent for people without Run sprints. Beside it the board says Opening a session captures every change made while it runs — no second write, and nothing to remember afterwards.

1. Open the board from the project screen.
2. Click Start Daily Scrum.

The session opens at once, with no scheduled time and no timer. The meeting pane appears beside the columns, headed Daily Scrum, with 15 minutes and your name as the facilitator. The product refuses a scheduled Daily Scrum longer than 15 minutes. A session started from the board has no scheduled time, so nothing times the meeting. The facilitator is a label. It gives no extra right to write anything.

A session with a scheduled time

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No screen schedules a session for a later time, and the product offers no way to do it. A scheduled session has a start, an end and a named facilitator. The facilitator must be a member of the organization. A session with a scheduled window is the only kind that has a calendar entry. The product does not move the window of a closed or a canceled session.

The product saves the settings Book the Daily Scrum automatically and Book the Sprint Review automatically, but books no session. See Project settings. The product sends no invitation and no reminder for a session.

The Attendees list

The section Attendees is on the board's meeting pane and on the Sprint Review screen. The Retrospective screen has no Attendees list. Everyone who can see the project can read the list.

The list holds attendees only. Members of the team that owns the sprint are participants without a row, so they never appear on it. An empty list says so. Rows are in alphabetical order.

Each row shows the person, a capacity and, when recorded, an attendance. People without Run sprints see a plain label only: observer or participant, and present or absent. No label shows when attendance is not recorded.

A closed Daily Scrum has no screen, so you cannot reach its list after it closes. A closed Sprint Review keeps its list on the Sprint Review screen. It also keeps the capacity select, the attendance select and Remove, but not Invite someone. A refusal appears as a red line at the top of the section, in the product's words.

Invite someone

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The control is absent for people without Run sprints. It is also absent when the session is closed or canceled.

1. Click Invite someone.
2. Choose a person in Person.
3. Choose Observer or Participant in As.
4. Click Invite.

The product loads the organization's members and shows Loading members… meanwhile. The As select shows Observer first, and the form explains why. The person appears in the list with the chosen capacity and no attendance. The form closes. The product sends them nothing: no email and no message in the app. Cancel closes the form and invites nobody.

The Person select omits people already on the list. When nobody is left, the form says so. Invite is disabled until you choose a person.

Capacity

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1. Choose Observer or Participant in the row's capacity select.

An observer reads the artifact. A participant can also write notes, cards and feedback, if they also hold Write in Scrum Events. You can change a capacity on an open session and on a closed one. When you promote an observer while the session is open, they can write in the live artifact at once. The activity feed records the change.

Attendance

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1. Choose Not recorded, Present or Absent in the row's attendance select.

Not recorded clears the record and stores nothing. You can correct attendance after the session closes. The select is still there on a closed session. The activity feed does not record attendance.

Remove an attendee

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1. Click Remove on the row.

There is no confirmation. The row disappears. The product offers Remove on a closed session too.

What a session records on its own

Nobody types this part of the artifact. While a session is open, the product stamps the changes it captures with that session. The session's record lists those changes. Nobody can edit or delete a line of it.

A session records these kinds of change:

• A status change, for example a card moved on the board.
• A priority change.
• A size change: a first size, a new size, or a size removed.
• An impediment raised or resolved, and an item that became blocked or unblocked.
• An edit to the item's notes, and notes cleared.

A Sprint Planning or Sprint Closing session also records each item moved into or out of its sprint. No screen shows that record.

A session does not record a rename, a summary or description edit, or a phase or epic move. It also does not record an assignment, a Definition of Done check, or a dependency. The product does not stamp a change made before the session opened or after it closed.

A session on a sprint records changes to the items in that sprint only. An open project-level Backlog Refinement records changes to any item in the project, in a sprint or in the backlog.

Where to read it

While a Daily Scrum is open, the pane section Captured this session lists the changes, oldest first. Each line shows the item number, the change as a sentence, and the name of the person who made it. History calls the To Do column Final. Before the first change the section says that nothing is there yet. Everyone who can see the project can read it, observers included.

The board does not refresh by itself. The list updates after you move a card, save notes or change an attendee. It also updates when you reload the page.

The Sprint Review and Retrospective screens do not show this list. Each item's History in the item panel holds the same lines. After a session closes, that is the only place to read them. History does not mark which lines belong to a session, and no screen shows when a session was open. The timestamps are your only guide. See Backlog items.

Notes

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Every session has a section Notes. Each person writes one block of their own. Other people's blocks appear above the editor under the author's name. The blocks stay in the order in which their authors first saved them.

The editor is a plain box with no visible label. On the board it is the third section of the meeting pane, below Captured this session. On the Sprint Review screen it is in the side column, below Attendees. On the Retrospective screen it is below the four columns.

1. Type in the box under Notes.
2. Click Save my notes.

The product saves on the click, not on each keystroke. A block holds up to 20,000 characters. If you save an empty box, the product deletes your block and stores no blank. The product trims spaces at the start and the end.

On the board, people without Write in Scrum Events see a line in place of the editor. It says they can read the artifact but not write in it. On the Sprint Review and Retrospective screens, the editor is absent for them.

The one conflict

Nobody else can change your block, so a colleague can never conflict with you. The one conflict is with yourself, when the same session is open in two tabs. The screen then reports the newer notes, reloads them, and keeps your draft in the box. If you save again, your draft replaces the other tab's text. See Editing conflicts.

Close a session

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The control is in the header of the meeting pane. It is absent for people without Run sprints.

1. If you did not save your notes, click Save my notes first.
2. Click Close session.

The product closes the session with no confirmation. The artifact becomes read-only for everyone, the facilitator included. The session records no more changes. The pane disappears, the board takes the full width, and Start Daily Scrum returns, so you can start another session the same day.

Cancel a session

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No screen cancels a session, and the product offers no way to cancel one. A canceled session never appears on a screen again, and nobody can restore it. The product does not cancel a session that is already canceled, and it does not cancel a closed one.

What the activity feed records

The activity feed records a row when somebody starts a session, closes it, cancels it or moves its window. It records a row when somebody saves notes, invites an attendee, removes one or changes a capacity. It also records a row when somebody adds, edits, removes or converts a Retrospective card or a piece of Sprint Review feedback.

Start Daily Scrum writes two rows: one when the product books the session and one when it opens the session. A capacity change writes a row only when the capacity changed. When you record attendance, the product writes no row.

The Activity screen shows the time, the person and the kind of row only. It does not name the person you invited, the direction a capacity moved, or the state of the session. The screen needs Manage the organization. See The activity feed.

Calendar file

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The product serves a session as a calendar file, but no screen links to one. Everyone who can see the project can read it. The file carries the project key, the sprint number and the kind of session in its name, for example proj-sprint-3-retro.ics. It holds the start, the end, the team, the facilitator and a link to the board.

A session needs a scheduled start and an end to have a calendar file. A Daily Scrum started from the board has no scheduled time, so it has no calendar entry, and the product answers This session has no scheduled window, so it has no calendar entry. A Sprint Closing never has a window, so it never has a file.

The Write in Scrum Events bundle

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Write in Scrum Events lets you write in a session's artifact: your notes block, a Retrospective card and a piece of Sprint Review feedback. Every built-in role carries it except Viewer. An organization role grants the bundle everywhere. A team role grants it for that team's sessions only, and the three screens show no editor on that grant alone. Either way, the product also checks that you are on the owning team or an attendee with the capacity Participant.

Three other bundles govern related controls.

• Run sprints starts and closes a session and keeps the Attendees list.
• Write items converts a card or a piece of feedback into a backlog item. A participant who can write a card cannot always convert it.
• Manage the project lets you edit or remove somebody else's card or feedback. Without it, Edit and Remove appear on your own cards only, and the product refuses another author's card: That card belongs to somebody else.

See Roles and permissions.