# The Weekly Sprint Check-In

Once a week your team lead looks at the state of the work and raises the sprint question with you directly: is there a stretch of work worth naming and turning into a sprint, or has the open sprint run past its date and earned a close? You answer in a sentence and the team acts on it. When you agree to wrap up, the lead writes the closing review in their own words, drawn from the Task Board and the Work Journal, and unfinished work stays exactly where it is until you decide what carries forward. Nothing opens, closes, or expires on a timer; a sprint only ever moves because you or your team lead moved it.

Once a week your team lead looks at the state of the work and starts a conversation. Is there a stretch of work worth naming and turning into a sprint? Has the open sprint passed the date you agreed and earned a wrap-up? You answer in a sentence and the team acts on it.

It is a conversation, not a report. Nothing is generated on a timer and nothing lands in your inbox to be skimmed and forgotten. The check-in exists so a sprint gets opened when it should be and closed when it should be, instead of drifting for a month because nobody looked.

When you agree to wrap up, the team lead writes the closing review in their own words: what landed, what did not, and what got in the way. Unfinished work stays exactly where it is on the board. What carries into the next sprint is your call, made on purpose.

## A Weekly Conversation, Not a Generated Report

Once a week the team lead considers the shape of the work and raises it with you. If a launch, a push, or a deadline deserves to be named, the lead proposes a sprint and a goal to go with it. If nothing does, nothing gets opened, and the team keeps working its task list.

That is the whole ritual. No standing meeting, no digest to read, no cadence that fires whether or not it has anything to say. The check-in only produces something when there is something to decide.

## Closing a Sprint Honestly

The other half of the check-in is the sprint already open. If it has passed the date you agreed, the lead says so and suggests wrapping it up rather than letting it run on quietly for another three weeks.

When you close it, the lead writes the review: what shipped against the goal, what did not, and why. Written by your team lead in their own words, drawn from the Work Journal and the Task Board. A colleague's account of the work, not a score.

## Why the Cadence Stays Human

A sprint on Sistava has exactly two states, open and closed, and only you or your team lead moves it between them. Nothing expires on a timer, nothing closes itself, and no unfinished task is moved or archived behind your back.

That is a deliberate choice. A cycle that runs itself produces reports nobody trusts. A cycle that needs one short conversation a week produces decisions you actually made, on work you actually recognise.

## How It Works

**Once a week your team lead raises the sprint with you: worth opening one, or time to wrap the open one up.**

The check-in is a short conversation on your team's own rhythm. The lead looks at what is on the board, what the sprint goal was, and how long it has been open, then brings you the one decision that needs making. Nothing is generated on a timer or pushed at you whether or not it has anything to say.

Agree to close and the review gets written: what landed against the goal, what did not, and why. Unfinished work stays on the board, so carrying it forward is a choice rather than a shuffle. Agree to open a new one and you name the work, agree the goal, and pick how long it runs. A week is the usual answer, two is fine.

## Use Cases

### Decide whether this week deserves a sprint

Your team lead raises it, you say yes or not yet. Nothing gets opened just because a week rolled over, and a team without a sprint keeps working its list.

### Wrap up a sprint that has run long

When the sprint passes the date you agreed, the lead says so instead of letting it drift, and you close it with a proper written review.

### Get an honest account of what landed

The closing review is written by your team lead in their own words: what shipped against the goal, what did not, and what got in the way.

### Carry unfinished work forward on purpose

Work that did not land stays on the board. You choose what goes into the next sprint instead of watching it move on its own.

## Comparison

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| A new cycle starts every fortnight whether or not anyone looked. | A sprint opens when someone decides the work is worth naming. |
| Reviews get skipped when the team is busy. | Closing a sprint always produces a written account of what landed. |
| A sprint quietly runs three weeks past its date. | The weekly check-in raises it while you can still act. |
| Unfinished work vanishes into the next cycle. | It stays on the board until you deliberately carry it over. |

## FAQ

### Do I have to run a sprint at all?

No. Sprints are optional. A team with none open works from its task list exactly as it would otherwise, and nothing opens one for you. Open one when a stretch of work is worth naming.

### What happens in the weekly check-in?

Your team lead raises two questions: is there work worth naming as a sprint, and has the open sprint passed the date you agreed? You answer in chat, and the lead opens one, keeps going, or wraps up accordingly.

### What is in the closing review?

What shipped against the goal, what did not, and what got in the way. Your team lead writes it in their own words, drawn from the Task Board and the Work Journal.

### What happens to unfinished work when a sprint closes?

It stays exactly where it is. Nothing is moved or archived on your behalf. You and your team lead decide what carries into the next sprint, deliberately.

### Can a sprint close itself when the time is up?

No. A sprint ends when you or your team lead ends it. The weekly check-in exists so an overdue sprint gets raised rather than forgotten, but the decision is always yours.

> My team lead pings me on Friday with one question: wrap this up or keep going. That single conversation replaced every status meeting we used to run.
>
> Owen C., Engineering Manager · SaaS company

## Where The Weekly Sprint Check-In fits

The Weekly Sprint Check-In is part of How they coordinate as a team.

Run your AI workforce the way you run a good team. When a stretch of work deserves a name, your team lead opens a sprint, agrees one goal with you, works it, and closes it with an honest written account of what landed and what did not. Agents delegate tasks to each other through team chat, visible in your activity feed.

- [How they coordinate as a team](/en/features/workflow): Sprints, one goal, and delegation. Built in.

## Read the guide

- [Guide: The Weekly Sprint Check-In](/en/guide/setup/hire-team)

## More in Sprints Planning

- [Give Your Team an AI Leader](/en/features/workflow/team_leader): Every team you hire gets one employee assigned as its leader, marked with a crown badge. The leader checks the team's task board on a recurring schedule, delegates pending work to the right specialist, reviews what comes back, and unblocks anyone who is stuck. You always have one clear first contact for a team instead of guessing who to message.
- [Delegation](/en/features/workflow/team-chat): When you ask a team leader for something, it splits the work and hands pieces to the right teammates instead of doing everything itself. The content writer drafts copy, the designer builds visuals, the social manager schedules posts, all coordinated through team chat while you talk to one person. Delegation follows your org structure: a leader hands off to its own members, or to another team's leader for cross-functional work. Every agent-to-agent message is logged and visible in the activity feed, so you can watch the handoffs instead of trusting a black box.
- [Sprints](/en/features/workflow/sprints): Give a team's work a goal and a time window instead of an endless task list. Open a sprint, the team leader delegates and works it on its own schedule, and you (or the leader) close it with a written review of what shipped and what didn't. Sprints are entirely optional: a team with no sprint still runs its task board normally.
- [Team OKRs and KPIs](/en/features/workflow/team_okrs_kpis): Give a team a real scoreboard: qualitative Objectives for the cycle, and measurable KPIs with a baseline, a target, and a current value that either roll up under an Objective as its Key Result or stand alone as an ongoing health metric. Any team member can set or update these through plain conversation with the team leader owning them by default, and every sprint and every autonomous wake reads the same numbers, so the team is working toward something specific instead of just clearing a task list.
- [Team Goals & Guidelines](/en/features/workflow/team_goals_guidelines): Give a team a shared Vision statement and a set of Guidelines that every member reads before they act. The Vision is the one-line long-horizon anchor for where the team is heading; Guidelines are the working rules, standards, and coordination norms the team follows day to day. Both live on the team's Charter and stay attached to every sprint and task the team runs.
- [Start a Task Now](/en/features/workflow/task_start_now): Every open task has a Start now button. Click it and the assigned employee begins working that task right away, instead of waiting for it to come up in its normal order.
- [Routines](/en/features/workflow/recurring_tasks): Set a task on a rhythm once, daily, weekly, or a custom cycle, and it runs itself from then on. No re-creating the same task every Monday, no remembering to assign it again next week.
- [Reliable Workflows](/en/features/workflow/workflows): Workflows give an important employee job one saved place from your request to its recorded result. Choose a job from the Work menu or ask in chat, then see its progress, decisions, and evidence without having to reconstruct the work later.
- [Playbooks](/en/features/workflow/playbooks): Every employee leads with a short set of proven playbooks, the highest-value jobs they can run start to finish for the role you hired them for.
- [Comment on a Sprint](/en/features/workflow/comment_on_sprint): Ask a question or leave a note directly on a sprint, right where the work is happening. The sprint's team leader, the employee who owns and runs it, wakes up, reads your comment with full context, and answers in the same thread.
- [Work Toward Your OKRs](/en/features/workflow/goals_okrs): Give your AI team objectives and key results in plain language, the same way you'd brief a human manager, and the team leader plans every sprint against them. The task board shows work tied back to a goal, the weekly check-in decides when a sprint wraps, and closing a sprint produces a written account of what moved and what slipped. Ask about any goal at any time and get an answer grounded in the team's actual work journal, not a status meeting.

## Explore

- [Every feature](/en/features)
- [Browse AI employees](/en/agents)
- [Pricing](/en/pricing)