Running the live session
What this page is — The controls that run a PI session while it happens: the session bar with the shared clock, the facilitator's buttons, the Broadcast to everyone, who is online, and the Discussion tab where teams ask, answer and share. What it is for — Keeping several teams — in one room, several rooms or on calls — on one timetable and one conversation, with nothing important lost in a chat channel. The problem it solves — In a big-room planning event the facilitator spends half the day shouting times and chasing answers. A clock everyone sees, pinned announcements that reach every open browser at once, and questions that are marked answered let the facilitator run the day and the teams keep planning.
Route: /org/tasks/pi-planning?project=<project>&session=<session> (the bar is on every tab) · …&tab=discussion
Permissions: Run a PI session, or being the session's named facilitator (clock, broadcast, pin) · Take part in a PI session as a team member (post, reply, resolve your own questions) · Open PI Planning sessions read-only (follow everything as an observer)
Module: PI Planning · Entry points: the session bar · the Discussion tab · a broadcast's bell or e-mail · global search → PI Planning › Discussion
1. One clock, one conversation
Everything in this page is live: when the facilitator starts the clock, sends a broadcast or someone posts, every open copy of the session updates within a moment, without a reload. If your connection drops, the wifi icon in the bar turns amber and the page keeps catching up every few seconds until it reconnects — nothing is missed.
| Session bar | Broadcast | Discussion post | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who | Facilitator acts; everyone sees | Facilitator | Team members and the facilitator |
| Reaches | Every open copy of the session | Every open copy, pinned on top; optionally a bell and an e-mail to every participant | Every open copy; a bell to each person @mentioned |
| Use it for | The time, the status, the next step | "Coffee in 10 minutes", "Dependencies sync now" | Questions, points, highlights between teams |
2. Why you would use it
- Nobody asks "how long have we got?" The countdown, the current break and the next slot are on everyone's screen.
- Announcements land even in a noisy room. A broadcast is pinned at the top of every Discussion tab and can ring the bell of people who have the session closed.
- Questions get closed. A question stays open until its author or the facilitator marks it answered, so the facilitator can see what is still unresolved before ending planning.
- Remote teams are equal. Presence per team shows who is in, and everything said in Discussion is written down for the team that was on a call.
3. The session bar — step by step
| Pip | Control | Who sees it | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Status chip | Everyone | Draft, Briefing, Planning, Review, Adjusting, Committed or Closed; hover for what it means. Round 2 appears after an adjustment round |
| 2 | Clock | Everyone | The countdown (see §4) |
| 3 | n online | Everyone | How many people have the session open, and a coloured count per team. Green wifi = live; amber = reconnecting |
| 4 | Edit the session (pencil) | Facilitator, session manager | The session drawer: name, facilitator, agenda (teams and PI are fixed once published) |
| 5 | Broadcast | Facilitator | Opens the broadcast drawer (§5). Available in Briefing, Planning, Review and Adjusting |
| 6 | Pause / Resume | Facilitator | Stops the clock; the end moves by the length of the pause. Resume restarts it |
| 7 | End planning | Facilitator | Asks Move to review? — the team boards freeze, demos and the vote open |
| 8 | Abandon the session (circled cross) | Session manager | Asks first. Closes the session without committing; its boards are archived and no task changes |
Other buttons take the place of pips 6–7 as the session moves on: Publish in Draft, Start planning in Briefing (The clock starts for everyone and the team boards open for moves.), Adjust and Merge & commit in Review, Close once committed. Every button that changes the status asks for confirmation in a dialog first.
Running the day:
- When the room is ready, Start planning. The clock starts for everyone and the team boards open.
- For an unplanned interruption — a fire alarm, a long question — Pause, then Resume.
- Send Broadcasts for breaks, syncs and decisions.
- Watch Discussion for open questions and the Program board for links waiting for an answer.
- When the time is up or the teams are done, End planning.
4. The clock
The clock is kept by the server and counted down in each browser, so every screen shows the same time; it re-synchronises on every change and every minute.
| What it shows | When |
|---|---|
| The full length, Not started | Before Start planning |
| The time left, Planning · next: Coffee in 1:23:13 | While running, with the next break or collaboration slot |
| A coffee-cup or people icon, Coffee (12:40 left) | During a break or a collaboration slot |
| Paused (amber) | While paused; the end moves by the pause |
| Time is up (red), with how long over | When the length has run out, or once planning has ended (no next: slot is shown then) |
| round 2 | During and after an adjustment round |
The agenda does not stop anything by itself: when a break starts, the clock shows it, but the boards stay open. Breaks and slots are offsets from the start — Coffee at +90 min — so a pause pushes them later too.
5. Broadcast — field reference
- Broadcast in the session bar.
- Write the message — rich text: bold, lists, links.
- Choose how it travels:
- Pin it (on by default) — stays at the top of the Discussion tab until unpinned.
- Bell notification (on by default) — every participant gets a bell, even with the session closed; it links straight to the Discussion tab.
- E-mail (off by default) — also sent by e-mail with the template PI Planning Broadcast.
- Send. The page switches to Discussion, where the broadcast is on top.
"Everyone taking part" is every member of the session's teams plus the facilitator; the sender does not get their own bell or e-mail. An empty message cannot be sent.
6. The Discussion tab
| Pip | Control | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pinned post | The facilitator's broadcasts — and anything they pin — stay on top, marked Pinned |
| 2 | A post and its replies | Kind chip (Question, Point, Highlight, Broadcast), author, team, time, edited, Resolved. Replies are indented, one level deep |
| 3 | Post to the session | Pick Question, Point or Highlight, write, Post. Type @ to mention a participant — they get a bell |
Per-post buttons, each with a tooltip:
| Button | Who | Does |
|---|---|---|
| Reply | Team members, facilitator | Opens a reply box under the post |
| Mark as answered / Mark as not answered | The question's author, the facilitator | Resolves or reopens a question |
| Pin to the top / Unpin | Facilitator | Pins or unpins any post |
| Delete | The author, the facilitator | Asks first; the post disappears for everyone |
The two filters above the posts show one kind (Everything, Question, Point, Highlight, Broadcast) and one team (All teams or a team). A post carries the team of its author's first team.
Posting is open while the session is in Briefing, Planning, Review or Adjusting. Before publishing the tab says The discussion opens when the session is published; after commit it stays readable. Observers read everything and see only team members and the facilitator post.
7. Worked example
At 09:00 the facilitator presses Start planning; every screen shows 8:00:00 counting down and next: Coffee in 1:30:00. The Mobile lead posts a Question: "Will the refund API accept partial refunds in iteration 1, or only full ones?" The Payments lead replies "Full refunds in iteration 1, partial ones in iteration 2 — planned that way on our board." The Mobile lead marks the question answered; it now shows Resolved. Platform posts a Highlight: gateway v2 is already in staging.
At 10:20 the facilitator broadcasts "Coffee in 10 minutes — then the dependencies sync in the big room. Bring your red strings." with Pin it and Bell on. It appears pinned on every open Discussion tab and rings the bell of the two engineers who had closed the session. At 11:05 a fire drill interrupts: Pause, then Resume at 11:20 — the clock's end, the lunch and the dependencies sync all move 15 minutes later.
8. The admin contract
- Who counts as a participant — members of the session's teams and the facilitator. Keep teams current in Organization Settings → Planning Teams, or broadcasts and mentions miss people.
- E-mail — the PI Planning Broadcast template must be active in the communication templates; it is sent only when E-mail is ticked.
- Live updates need the browser to keep a live connection to Orbit; behind a proxy that blocks it, the page still updates every few seconds.
9. Don't confuse this with…
- Task comments — comments belong to one task and stay with it. Discussion belongs to the session and is about the plan.
- Risks — a worry raised in Discussion is only talk; raise it on the Risks tab to give it a ROAM state and an owner.
- Planning → Goals — goals per time box. In PI Planning each team writes its goal per iteration on its board and the PI's objectives on the Objectives tab (Review, merge and commit).
10. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No Broadcast, Pause or End planning | You are not the facilitator (named, or with Run a PI session) | Ask the facilitator; a session manager can hand the session over with the pencil |
| No Abandon button | The role lacks Create, edit and close PI sessions, or the session is committed or closed | Grant it; a committed session is closed, not abandoned |
| Wifi icon amber, "Reconnecting" | The live connection dropped | Nothing to do — updates still arrive every few seconds; check the network if it stays amber |
| The clock shows Time is up but people are still planning | The length ran out; the clock does not freeze the boards | End planning, or start an adjustment round later |
| A pause did not move the lunch break | It did — breaks are offsets from the start and shift with every pause | Look at next: … after resuming |
| No composer on Discussion | You are an observer, or the session is in Draft, Committed or Closed | Ask to join a team |
| A mention did not ring | The person is not a participant, or you mentioned yourself | Add them to one of the session's teams |
| A broadcast e-mail did not arrive | E-mail was not ticked, or the template is inactive | Tick E-mail; check the communication templates |