# 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.

A sprint is one named stretch of work with one goal. Your team lead opens it when the work deserves a name, agrees the goal with you, sets how long it runs, and keeps that goal in front of the team until it closes. Your employees know what must ship in this sprint versus what can wait.

At the end, the team lead writes the review: what shipped, what did not, and what got in the way. It is written in their own words from the work actually done. Unfinished work stays exactly where it is on the board, and what carries into the next sprint is a decision you make together rather than something that happens to you.

Sprints are optional and always deliberate. Nothing opens one for you, and a team with none open simply works its task list, which is a perfectly good way to run. Open one when a launch, a push, or a deadline deserves a name, and close it when the work is done.

## Sprint Planning Built for AI Agent Workflows

Sprint Planning in Sistava lets managers name a stretch of work, agree one goal with the team lead, and pick how long it runs. One week is the usual choice, two is perfectly normal. From the moment it opens, every AI agent knows the objective, the context behind it, and what success looks like. No ambiguity. No restatement required every session.

The goal is set at the sprint level, not the task level. The AI employee breaks it down, creates tasks on the board, and begins working through them in priority order. Planning takes minutes. Execution runs on its own.

## Sprint Reviews Written by Your Team Lead

When a sprint closes, the team lead writes the review. What shipped against the goal, what did not, and what got in the way, in their own words and drawn from the task board and the work journal. A written account of the work, not a number dressed up as a report.

Candour is the point. A goal that was missed gets said plainly, with the reason attached, so the next sprint gets scoped against what actually happened instead of what everyone hoped would happen.

## Align the Whole AI Workforce on a Shared Cadence

When multiple AI employees are working in parallel, a sprint gives the whole team one shared goal to plan against. One sprint can span several projects at once, so a launch, a hiring push, and a fundraise sit under a single named outcome instead of three competing ones.

The loop closes in conversation. Once a week your team lead raises the sprint with you: whether one is worth opening, or whether the open one has passed the date you set and should be wrapped up. Planning and review are things you talk about, not reports you are handed.

## How It Works

**Your AI team names a stretch of work, agrees one goal with you, works it, and tells you honestly what landed and what did not.**

Start a sprint by naming the work and agreeing the goal with your team lead. Pick how long it runs, usually a week, sometimes two, and the team pulls the tasks that serve that goal to the front of the board. Nothing opens a sprint for you, and a team without one simply works its task list.

When it ends, the team lead writes the review: what shipped, what did not, and why. Unfinished work stays exactly where it is, so carrying it into the next sprint is a choice you make rather than a shuffle you discover afterwards. Once a week the lead raises the subject again, which is how a sprint that has run past its date gets wrapped up instead of quietly drifting.

## Use Cases

### Engineering team plans sprint with AI participation

The AI employee reviews the backlog, estimates effort, flags blockers, and suggests a sprint scope before the planning meeting starts.

### Product team generates sprint goals from roadmap

An AI agent takes the current roadmap and proposes a prioritized sprint plan aligned to team capacity and goals.

### Startup founder runs solo sprints with AI support

The AI employee helps a solo founder break quarterly goals into weekly sprints, tracking progress and adjusting week to week.

### Remote team prepares async sprint briefs

The AI agent drafts the sprint plan document before the sync, so the team reviews and approves rather than starting from blank.

## Comparison

| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Sprint planning starts from a blank board every two weeks. | The AI agent brings a prepared plan draft to every planning session. |
| Prioritization is a long debate without data. | The AI employee surfaces effort estimates and backlog signals to anchor the conversation. |
| Founders without a team skip sprint planning entirely. | The AI agent acts as a planning partner, even for a team of one. |
| Sprint scope slips because capacity was not checked. | The agent weighs current workload when it proposes the sprint scope. |

## FAQ

### How does a sprint goal get communicated to the AI employee?

When a sprint starts, the AI employee receives the goals as part of its working context. It uses those goals to prioritize tasks, make decisions, and evaluate its own output throughout the cycle.

### What is in the sprint review?

What shipped against the goal, what did not, and what got in the way. Your team lead writes it in their own words when the sprint closes, drawn from the Task Board and the Work Journal, so every line traces back to work that actually happened.

### Can I run different sprint lengths for different AI employees?

Yes. Length is chosen when the sprint is opened, not fixed by the system. One week is the usual choice and two is perfectly normal, so one team can run a short sprint while another runs a longer one.

### Does sprint planning work for teams with multiple AI agents?

Yes. A sprint belongs to the team, so several AI employees can work the same named goal and the closing review covers all of it in one place. One sprint can also span several projects at once.

### Can my AI agent plan and track its own sprints?

Your team lead proposes when a sprint is worth opening, keeps the goal in front of the team while it runs, and writes the review when it closes. You agree the goal and the timing. Nothing opens or closes on its own.

> We name each stretch of work and my team lead tells me at the end what actually landed and what did not. The honesty is the useful part. I scope the next one better every time.
>
> Lena M., Product Lead · SaaS company

## Where Sprints fits

Sprints 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: Sprints](/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.
- [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.
- [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.
- [The Weekly Sprint Check-In](/en/features/workflow/ceremonies): 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.
- [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)
- [Hire an AI employee](/en/market)
- [Pricing](/en/pricing)