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The Structure and Meetings modules: circles, roles, proposals, policies. Run Holacracy, Sociocracy, or your own practice.
A circle in Talkspirit is a unit of your organisation in the Structure module. It holds roles, sub-circles and members, and carries its own purpose, domains and accountabilities.
Adding a role or a sub-circle in Talkspirit goes through a proposal, which takes effect once the circle adopts it. Administrators can also add one straight to the chart in Architect mode.
Spark drafts the purpose, domains and accountabilities of a role or a circle on the form where you create or edit it. It does not create the role or the circle itself.
Edit a role or a circle from its page in Structure. One dialog holds the name, purpose, domains and accountabilities, and the change travels as a governance proposal instead of landing on the chart straight away.
Delete a role or a circle from its page in Structure. Deleting a circle takes its roles, its sub-circles and every assignment to them, the interface offers no way to restore it, and in most organisations the deletion travels as a governance proposal.
Talkspirit has no Duplicate action for a circle. Create the new circle, then fill it from role templates, and use Copy from existing role when you need a second role like one already in the circle.
Extend a role into a circle from the role menu, in one step. Reducing a sub-circle back to a role is a proposal instead, and it deletes whatever you do not move out of the circle first.
Move a role or a sub-circle to a different circle from its own page in Structure. The move travels as a governance proposal and lands on the chart once that proposal is adopted.
Restructure a sub-circle without leaving a governance meeting: add a Restructure evolution to a proposal on the agenda item, then adopt the proposal to move roles and sub-circles in or out.
Deleting a circle takes its roles, sub-circles and every assignment beneath it. Goals, metrics and projects stay behind, and the interface cannot undo it
Add someone to a circle without giving them a role, remove them again, and know what the two actions really change, starting with decision-maker rights.
A decision maker is a circle member who can create roles, sub-circles and proposals in that circle. Everyone assigned to a circle is one by default
A circle admin manages one circle: its settings, its other circle admins, and who counts as a decision maker in it. It is not the same as being a decision maker, nor the same as being an organisation administrator.
Explore organisation draws every circle and role in your organisation on one canvas. Switch between three views, zoom and pan, and open any circle or role from the chart.
Time travel replays your organisation's structural history so you can see the chart exactly as it was on any past date, from a read-only timeline of every circle and role change.
The search box on the organisation chart dims every role that does not match what you type. It matches circle and role names and the names of the people assigned to them.
A view is a saved set of highlights that colours roles and circles on your organisation chart. Create one from Highlight, apply it in one click, and share it if you are an administrator.
Administrators choose which views the organisation chart offers, which one members open first, and whether member photos appear on it, from Structure settings > Visualisation.
The top-level circle is the one with no circle above it. It is the only circle whose edits apply the moment you save them, and editing it asks for decision-maker status on that circle rather than administrator rights.
Opening a circle in Talkspirit gives you one page with up to nine tabs. Four are always there, five depend on your organisation's settings, and a side rail lists the circle's roles and sub-circles.
A circle's own settings page holds its role configuration, its circle admins, its governance overrides and its privacy, each set for that circle alone
Circle settings in Talkspirit define how all circles operate, role assignment, elections, main roles and decision-making, and which of those settings each circle can change for itself.
A circle's Privacy tab holds two controls, Operations visibility and Attachments and agreements visibility. Neither one hides the circle from the chart.
Administrators create, edit, hide, reorder and delete custom fields in Structure settings, so role and circle pages carry the information their organisation needs.
Every role and circle page carries four core governance fields plus your organisation's custom fields. Core fields change through a proposal, custom fields are usually typed straight in.
Every role and circle in Talkspirit has an Attachments tab where you can upload files or save links to documents that live elsewhere. This article covers the sources, the limits, and who can add or remove an attachment.
Administrators build chart highlights on Structure settings > Visualisation > Highlight, then publish them by adding them to a shared view. A highlight on its own colours nobody's chart.
A highlight is a colour with a rule behind it. It paints the roles and circles that match and pushes the rest into the background, but only once you apply a view that contains it.
The Translation add-on machine-translates your organisation's circles and roles into the languages you activate, so members can read the chart in their own language. Only an administrator can enable it.
A role in Talkspirit describes a piece of work through its purpose, domains and accountabilities. Members are assigned to it, and one role can have several holders.
A main role is a role created from a role template with the Main role box ticked. Talkspirit adds one to every new circle, shows it with a Core badge, and lets only main roles assign members.
Add or remove the people who fill a role in Talkspirit, and understand what an assignment also grants: circle membership and decision-maker rights.
Apply for a role marked as hiring, and leave a role you hold, with the one permission that decides whether you can leave it yourself
Find your own roles in the Structure panel under My circles and roles, on the Roles tab of your member profile, on the Cockpit, and on the chart
A cross-circle role is an existing role invited into another circle: what it inherits, who can invite one, and who can hold it
Invite a role from another circle into yours through a proposal or in Architect mode, and see what editing or deleting the invited copy changes.
A relation is derived, never typed. Talkspirit records one when a role or a circle mentions another in its domains or accountabilities, and shows it in the read-only Relations section on a circle's General tab.
A role template is a reusable role definition administrators create in Structure settings. Talkspirit ships none, so your organisation's list starts empty and you build it.
Talkspirit ships no ready-made role templates. These are the standard role definitions from the Holacracy, Sociocracy, Scrum and Goal frameworks, ready to copy into templates you create yourself.
Fill an elected role in Talkspirit by running an election proposal, or nominate someone directly for a temporary mandate with an end date.
Type @ and the first letters of a role's name in any rich text field to insert a link to that role. From a comment, the mention also notifies everyone assigned to the role.
The Time spent in roles add-on lets each member record what share of their working time goes to each role, and turns those percentages into FTE figures on circle pages, role pages and member profiles.
Switch on the Time spent add-on from Administration, check what your organisation is entitled to, and see what changes for members once it is on.
How the Meetings module works: scheduling, reusable templates, agenda preparation, live note-taking, reports, and calendar synchronisation
How a governance meeting runs in Talkspirit: the five sections of the Governance Meeting template, how proposals reach the agenda, and how the circle decides on each one.
Tactical meetings in Talkspirit are structured circle meetings focused on operational work, triaging issues and assigning actions to keep work moving.
Schedule a meeting in Talkspirit, give it a recurrence, start it when it is time, and delete one occurrence or the whole series
Every participant can add to a meeting's agenda, before it starts or while it runs, by typing into the Agenda panel or importing an item they parked earlier
The AI notetaker transcribes a meeting as it happens, so you can follow the discussion in text and keep a written record. It runs in the Talkspirit Desktop app and processes your microphone on your own machine.
Switch a meeting to Video or Hybrid to get a Talkspirit room link generated for you, or paste your own from Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or Zoom
Every Talkspirit meeting is Public or Private. On a Public meeting, anyone in the organisation can open it, add an agenda item, and set the note taker
Any participant can close a meeting in Talkspirit. Closing creates the meeting report, records where each agenda item ended up, and can be undone for two hours
Any participant can hand the note taker role to another invited participant from the Participants panel, before or during a Talkspirit meeting.
Talkspirit tracks meeting attendance in two places: the invitation replies in the Participants panel, and the Check-in section of the running meeting, whose ticks are what the report keeps.
Talkspirit deletes a scheduled meeting nobody opened: after 1 day with no agenda items, after 7 days with agenda items. Move the items before then
Unprocessed agenda items stay on the closed meeting in Talkspirit until you reschedule them from the Agenda items page onto a future agenda
Build a reusable meeting structure in Talkspirit: add sections and agenda items, then choose who in your organisation can use the template
Which of the ten meeting templates that ship with Talkspirit suits your meeting, what sections each one runs, and how to shape a template teams keep
Connect your own Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook account, or subscribe to an ICS feed, so your Talkspirit meetings appear in the calendar you already use.
A calendar inbox gives your organisation an email address that accepts meeting invitations. Invitations sent to it are routed to the circles you choose, so meetings organised outside Talkspirit still land in the right place.
Add a goal, task, board, proposal, metric or checklist to an upcoming meeting's agenda with the Bring to a meeting action
A proposal is how a decision maker puts a governance change to their circle. It carries one or more changes, is discussed by the circle, and only reaches the organisation chart once it is adopted.
Create a governance proposal in Talkspirit: pick its type and its circle, add the changes you want, then submit it to the circle for a decision
Spark drafts the content of the changes you put in a proposal: a new role's purpose, domains and accountabilities, and a policy's description. It plays no part in creating the proposal itself.
Start a governance proposal from Structure > Proposals: choose a type and a circle, then build the change as evolutions before you submit it.
Submit a draft proposal to your circle in Talkspirit, then follow it from Submitted to Adopted, Rejected or Withdrawn on the Proposals page.
Decision makers of the circle a proposal applies to record their consent, by raising no objection or by objecting with a reason, during the review period or in a governance meeting.
Delete removes a draft for good. A proposal already in circulation cannot be deleted: the only way to stop it is Withdraw, which is permanent and cannot be resubmitted.
Decision settings control whether governance changes in Talkspirit apply directly or become a proposal that circle members can object to first
Administrators set up consent decision-making on the Decision settings tab: require proposals for governance changes, then give circle members a review period in which to object before a proposal is adopted.
Your tensions live in the lightning-bolt panel in the top bar and in the Tensions list, where each one becomes a proposal, an agenda item or a task.
Metrics track a number a circle or role reports on a set frequency. Add one from the Metrics tab, record its values, and delete it in two stages: archive first, then delete.
A policy is a document attached to a circle or a role. Add one from the Policies section of that circle or role, write it in the editor, then publish it or submit it for governance.
Publications are called working agreements in Talkspirit. Find them in Structure, see what a document holds, and learn how types, visibility, consent and version history work.
Create a working agreement from the Structure module, attach it to one of your roles, write it, and publish it. Document types set to a governance workflow go to the circle for a decision instead.
How to change the content of a working agreement in Talkspirit, publish the new version, and archive or permanently delete one you no longer need.
The working agreement editor in Talkspirit supports headings, lists, tables, callouts, emoji shortcuts, and inline mentions for rich content creation.
Several people can work on the same working agreement in Talkspirit, but not at the same moment: edits go to a shared draft that someone then publishes, and comments carry the discussion.
Every working agreement in Talkspirit keeps its published versions. Open Version history from the document menu to see the list and restore an earlier version.
Administrators create, edit and delete the document types that categorise working agreements, and decide which types go through a governance proposal before they are published.
Documented processes live in the Structure module as working agreements. Each document type either publishes directly or goes through a governance proposal, and every document moves from draft to published.
Checklists in Talkspirit track recurring role and circle actions with a set recurrence, ticked off from the role or circle page or during a meeting.
The Holacracy add-on switches on tensions, checklists, the Governance and Tactical meeting templates, and Holacracy terminology. The rest of the Structure module works without it.
Holacracy is the default governance methodology in Talkspirit. Turn on the Holacracy add-on for tensions and checklists, then map roles, circles, proposals, elections and meetings to your practice.
Holacracy 5.0 renames two structural roles, lets a role be held by several members, formalises cross-circle roles, and tightens circle membership. Talkspirit's Structure module supports it without tying you to a version.
Talkspirit has no sociocracy mode. What it has is consent decisions, elected roles, representative roles and renameable vocabulary, and this is how to assemble them into a sociocratic practice.
Governance in Talkspirit lives in the Structure module: circles, roles, and the proposals that change them. Here is the map and who can change what
Architect mode lets administrators edit your organisation's structure directly in the Structure module, applying each change to the live chart with no proposal
A domain is something a role or circle controls exclusively. It is one of the four core governance fields carried by every role and circle page in Talkspirit.
With the Translation add-on, every member can read circles and roles in one of the languages your organisation has activated, and appointed translators review the automatic translations.