Scrum Teams

What a Scrum Team is

A Scrum Team is a named group of people in an organization. It has one timezone of its own, and that timezone anchors the boundaries of every sprint the team owns. A person can be on no team, one team or several teams.

A team grants access only when it has members and works on a project. A person joins the organization first, by invitation, and joins a team afterwards. See Invitations. The product records every change on these screens in the activity feed. See The activity feed.

The Scrum Teams screen

NeedsView view

Open the organization. Click Teams in the rail. The screen is titled Scrum Teams. It shows one card per team, in alphabetical order. Each card shows the team name, the number of members and the team timezone, for example 3 members · Europe/London. Click a card to open the team. A deleted team is not on the list.

A person who is not a member of the organization sees a not-found page instead of the screen. A member who holds no role with View has no Teams entry in the rail, and the address answers the same page.

When the organization has no team, the screen says No Scrum Teams yet. Use New Scrum Team to make the first one — a sprint cannot be activated without one. A person without Manage the organization reads No Scrum Teams yet. Creating one needs the Organization capability. instead.

Create a team

NeedsManage the organization org_manage

The New Scrum Team button sits at the top right of the Scrum Teams screen.

1. Click New Scrum Team.
2. Type a name in Name.
3. Click Create team.

The dialog has one field, Name. The hint under the name states the organization's timezone and ends Team settings can change it afterwards. The product copies that timezone to the new team at that moment. A later change to the organization's timezone does not change the timezone of the team. See Organizations. Cancel clears the name you typed, and a new team opens on its own screen with no members.

The Free plan cap

NeedsManage the organization org_manage

The Free plan includes 1 Scrum Team. Pro and Enterprise have no cap. The product counts live teams at the moment you create one, so a deleted team frees its place. An organization over its cap keeps every team it has, and the product refuses only the next one.

Nothing warns before the organization reaches the cap. The Scrum Teams screen shows no plan usage. The plan usage line on the organization overview counts projects only. The Billing screen is the one place that shows how many teams are in use.

At the cap, the New Scrum Team dialog still opens on the Name form. After you click Create team, the dialog replaces the form with a plan fact rather than an error, and offers Back and See plans. The name you typed is still there. See Plans and billing.

The team screen

NeedsView view

The name of the team is the title. Below it, two rows show the settings: Name and Timezone. The Delete this team section follows. A Members section closes the screen, with the columns Person, Slot and Granted by. Members appear in the order they joined. When nobody is on the team, the section says Nobody is on this team yet. A team with no members grants nothing to anybody.

Every control on this screen needs Manage the organization. Without it, the Name and Timezone inputs show their values but you cannot edit them, the slot and the Granted by role show as plain text, and no button is present. The lede then reads This team’s settings and members. Only an administrator can change them.

Name and timezone

NeedsManage the organization org_manage

1. Change the text in Name or Timezone.
2. When a value differs from the saved one, click Save changes.

Save changes is disabled until a value differs from the saved one. Saved appears beside the button after the product saves. The form sends both fields together. When two people edit the team at the same time, the last save wins.

Beside the Name row the screen says Shown wherever this team appears — sprint headers, project assignment, the Members tab. Must be unique in the organization. The Timezone field takes a zone name as free text, and its hint reads An IANA zone, e.g. "Europe/London" or "America/Los_Angeles". There is no list of zones to choose from.

The zone decides when a sprint's Monday starts and when its final Friday ends. It never changes how the product shows a date. Every date you see is in your own timezone. See Time and timezones.

From a stale tab, Save changes can fail. If somebody deleted the team meanwhile, the product refuses it: Scrum Team not found. The message appears above the two rows, not beside the button.

Delete a team

NeedsManage the organization org_manage

The Delete this team section sits between the settings and the members. Its text reads Its members keep their organization roles but lose whatever this team granted. A team with projects assigned to it cannot be deleted.

1. Click Delete team.
2. Read the dialog. It is titled Delete …? with the name of the team, and it says Members keep their organization roles. Anything this team granted them stops applying.
3. Click Delete team to confirm.

To keep the team, click Cancel. After you confirm, the product returns to the Scrum Teams screen. The team disappears from every list and select, and its name and its place under the plan cap are free again. A sprint the team owned still shows the team name. There is no way to restore a deleted team.

The product keeps the memberships of a deleted team. The Roles screen still counts them as places where their Granted by role is held, and refuses to delete that role. The screen of a deleted team is a not-found page, so the team screen cannot clear them. Remove on the Members screen of the organization does clear them, on live teams and on deleted teams alike.

The check runs when you confirm, so it catches an assignment made in another tab. The refusal appears inside the Delete …? dialog, and the dialog does not close on a click outside it. Click Cancel or press Escape to leave it.

Add a member

NeedsManage the organization org_manage

The Add member button sits in the Members header. It is absent when every member of the organization is already on the team.

1. Click Add member. The dialog is titled Add someone to this team.
2. Choose a person in Person. The select opens on Choose a member… and offers only members of the organization who are not on the team.
3. Choose a slot in Slot: Developer or Scrum Master. Developer is the default.
4. The button is disabled until you choose a person. Click Add to team.

Only a member of the organization can join a team. Product Owner is not a slot. The Product Owner is named on the project screen, one per project. See Projects.

The new row appears at the end of the table. Its Granted by role is the system team role that matches the slot, Developer or Scrum Master. The dialog says so: They will be granted this team’s matching role. Change what it grants in the Granted by column afterwards.

The product matches the system role, not its name. A renamed system role is still the one granted, and the column shows the new name. If an administrator deleted the system role of the slot, the product refuses: This organization has no seeded "developer" team role. For the Scrum Master slot, the message reads This organization has no seeded "scrum_master" team role. That message does not use the label of the slot.

When Add to team fails, the dialog stays open, and the message appears above the Members table behind it. Click Cancel to read it.

A team membership does not use a seat on the plan. The product counts seats at the organization. See Plans and billing.

The product sends no notification or email when a person joins or leaves a team.

The slot and the Granted by role

NeedsManage the organization org_manage

Each row has two selects. Slot is what the person is on the team: Developer or Scrum Master. Granted by is the team role that decides what the person can do on the work of the team. The screen explains: The slot is what somebody is on this team. The granted by role is what they can actually do — two different things, kept separate on purpose.

The product saves a change to either select immediately. There is no save button and no confirmation. On one row, a change to Slot does not change Granted by, and a change to Granted by does not change Slot. If you move the Scrum Master to Developer, the team has no Scrum Master, and the product allows that.

When the product refuses a change, it does not re-read the screen. The select returns to its saved value, and the message appears above the Members table. There is no dialog. When somebody else removed the person from the team meanwhile, the message reads That person is not on this Scrum Team.

Granted by offers every team role in the organization, including a team role an administrator makes on the Roles screen. See Roles and permissions. The Roles screen refuses to delete a team role that any membership names in Granted by. Its refusal counts the places, for example This role is still held in 3 places. Reassign them before deleting it. Change the Granted by role of each membership first.

Remove a member

NeedsManage the organization org_manage

1. On the team screen, click Remove on the row of the person in the Members table.
2. Read the dialog. It is titled Remove …? with the name of the person, and it says They stay in the organization and keep their organization roles. What this team granted them stops applying.
3. Click Remove from team.

To keep the person, click Cancel instead. The product removes the person from this team only. The person keeps their other team memberships. What this team granted them stops immediately, also over sprints the team ran before.

The Remove button on the Members screen of the organization is a different control. It removes the person from the organization and from every team, and you cannot change a membership there. See Members.

The refusal stops when another member takes the Scrum Master slot. The first person then holds the Developer slot.

1. In the Members table, set the Slot of another member to Scrum Master.
2. Check that the Slot of the first person now reads Developer.
3. Click Remove on the row of the first person.

When the product refuses, the Remove …? dialog stays open. The message appears above the Members table, behind the dialog. The dialog does not close on a click outside it. Click Cancel or press Escape to read the message.

Assign a team to a project

NeedsManage the project project_manage

You assign a team on the project screen, in the Teams section. See Projects. The header counts the teams: 1 team or 2 teams. Each row shows the team name and assigned with the date, in your own timezone. Anyone with View reads the list. The select, Assign and Remove need Manage the project on that project, and are absent without it.

1. Open the project.
2. Find the Teams section.
3. Choose a team in Add a Scrum Team. The select opens on Choose a team….
4. There is no confirmation. Click Assign.

Assign is disabled until you choose a team. The select offers only the live teams of the organization that are not on the project yet. Under it the screen says Every member of that team gets their team role over this project’s work. When every team already works on the project, the screen replaces the select with Every Scrum Team in this organization already works here. A project can have several teams, and a team can work on several projects.

When the project has no team, the section says No team is assigned. Until one is, only org-wide grants and the Product Owner reach this project’s work — and a sprint cannot be activated. In an organization with no team, nothing appears below that sentence: neither the select nor the note. The project screen has no control to make a team. Make one on the Scrum Teams screen first.

From a stale tab, Assign can fail. The message appears above the team list. When somebody else assigned the team meanwhile, the message names the team: … already works on this project. When somebody deleted the team meanwhile, it reads Scrum Team not found.

Remove a team from a project

NeedsManage the project project_manage

1. On the project screen, click Remove on the row of the team in the Teams section.
2. Read the warning on the row: Removes this team’s access to the project’s work, including past sprints.
3. Click Remove … with the name of the team to confirm.

To keep the team, click Keep. After you confirm, the change takes effect immediately. The members of the team lose their team role over the work of the project, including sprints the team ran before. Their organization roles do not change, so they still see the project when an organization role grants View. The team returns to the Add a Scrum Team select.

From a stale tab, the confirmed Remove can fail when somebody else already removed the team. The message appears above the team list: That Scrum Team does not work on this project.

What an assignment grants

Every member of an assigned team gets the bundles of their Granted by role over the Scrum Events of the sprints that team owns. See Scrum Events. The grant reaches a session and nothing else in the project.

Run sprints over a session covers the schedule and the meeting. A person with it can schedule the session, reschedule it and name who facilitates it. The same person can open it, close it, cancel it and manage its attendee list. Write in Scrum Events covers the cards and the notes.

• The system Developer role grants Write items and Write in Scrum Events.
• The system Scrum Master role grants those two and Run sprints.
• Through a team, Run sprints reaches only the sessions of the team, and Write items reaches nothing.
• The system team roles do not grant View. To see a project, a person needs View from an organization role or from a project override on that project.

The grant does not reach the sprint itself or its items. Three other sources reach them: an organization role, a project override on that project, and the Product Owner. To create, plan, activate, end or close a sprint, a person needs Run sprints from one of the three. The same is true to add items to a sprint or to remove them. To write an item, a person needs Write items from one of the three. Write items also covers a card you move on the board, a Definition of Done check and a card you turn into a backlog item.

Organization roles and team roles combine. A person holds every bundle that any of their roles grants where the work lives. A project override is the only thing that can remove a bundle. See Roles and permissions and Project overrides.