how we work · sessions
Sessions
Every artefact in the chain is produced by a session — a meeting, a watch, a walk. The volumes describe what is produced; the templates describe what good output looks like; the practice pages teach the how. Sessions describe the meeting that produces it — when, who, time-box, agenda, outputs.
A session is the smallest unit of the chain's calendar. Twenty-two of them run the entire chain. Each has a standard shape:
- When — what triggers it; how often
- Who — named roles, not "stakeholders"
- Time-box — fixed, not negotiable
- Inputs — the artefacts the session reads
- Agenda — minute-by-minute
- Outputs — the artefact the session produces
- What good looks like — the felt signal of a session working
- Anti-pattern — what bad looks like, named
Together, sessions are the machinery of the chain. A team that runs all twenty-two well produces the chain's artefacts without conscious effort. A team that runs them as ceremony produces artefacts that don't compound. The discipline is in the shape.
Discovery & Direction
The four sessions that produce the bet, the brief, and the trio's first shared model.
- Observation session — 90 min sitting next to a named person
- Anchored interview — the follow-up that fills what observation couldn't
- Direction setting — Vision/Mission/Goals review
- Initiative kickoff — the multi-cycle bet, signed and dated
Shaping
The four sessions that turn a brief into a story map the trio can pull from.
- Epic kickoff — name the activity, sketch the slices
- Amigos session — three people, 45 min, Gherkin scenarios
- Story refinement — DoR walk, states named
- ADR / PDR review — the decision walks, with at least two options
Build & Review
The four sessions that hold the chain through execution.
- Daily standup — 15 min, three lines per person
- Code review session — sync when async stalls
- Three-confirmation review — PO + QA + Designer before merge
- Release gate review — the state check, not a meeting
Operate & Reflect
The four sessions that close the cycle and feed the next.
- First-48-hours watch — dashboards, not tickets
- Signal reading session — the check on the named date
- Retrospective — three questions, one change
- Model update session — the same hour as the retro
Incidents
The two sessions that contain harm and convert it into structural fix.
- Incident war room — three roles, contain before diagnose
- Postmortem — within 48h, one structural change
Cadence
The four sessions that hold the relationship with the client and the portfolio.
- Weekly client update writing — Friday before wrap
- Bi-weekly client sync — 45 min, fixed agenda
- Quarterly portfolio review — 90 min, at least one kill
- Quarterly SLA review — contract conversation, not sales
Onboarding
- Onboarding shadow cycle — one cycle witnessed beats five volumes read
How to use sessions alongside the rest of the corpus
| Layer | Question it answers | Where to read |
|---|---|---|
Volumes (/cycle/) | Why this work matters | The five-volume narrative |
Areas (/areas/) | What craft this belongs to | The 13-section grid |
Roles (/roles/) | Who holds the stance | PO, TL, Designer, QA, CS Lead |
Skills (/skills/) | How a person grows into the role | Gated skill paths |
Practice (/practice/) | How to do the act | Lesson-shaped pages |
Templates (/templates/) | What good output looks like | Copy-paste skeletons |
Checklists (/checklists/) | Recall under pressure | Short, scannable |
Sessions (/sessions/) | How the meeting is run | This section |
Clinics (/clinics/) | What bad looks like | Anti-pattern walkthroughs |
Sessions sit between practice and template — they tell you how the room is run, so that the practice happens and the template gets filled. A team that has practice and template but no shared session shape runs each meeting differently every time — and the chain's compounding leaks out at every meeting boundary.