PI planning

What is PI planning?

PI planning definition: PI Planning stands for Program Increment Planning. Teams using the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) schedule these two-day events every eight to 12 weeks depending on the length of their increments. These planning sessions or ceremonies give big teams a chance to coordinate and integrate the actions of smaller team units.

Project managers figure out the planned features for the increment, development teams own user story planning, and UX designers and researchers validate the planning. The goal here is to align teams both to the mission of the organization and to each other.

Before the innovation of digital tools, like Mural, allowing remote teams to collaborate around the globe, PI planning was done with everyone attending in person. Obviously, getting teams from around the world together in the same physical location for two days cost companies a great deal. Now more than ever, SAFe teams are discovering the power of tools that make it easy to do PI planning remotely.

If you’re new to using the SAFe framework, you’ll want to begin with the PI planning ceremony. 

So let’s dig a bit deeper into the “why.”
‍

Why use PI planning?

PI planning is essential for large scale organizations using Agile. Imagine an organization with 20,000 developers. These developers might be broken down into 400–600 teams. Before PI planning, it was not uncommon for teams like this never to talk to each other (unless something went drastically wrong). 

In the past, any alignment on vision would have happened only from the top down. Managers of teams might have gotten together to talk about the big picture — vision, mission, values. And of course, we’re talking about multiple levels of management playing telephone, passing the information down to their teams. But the teams themselves would never coordinate.

So, PI planning is the first opportunity many teams at large organizations get to talk to one another. It’s exciting because as the Agile Manifesto states, “the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is a face-to-face conversation."

The business benefits of PI planning include:

• Establishing communication across all team members and stakeholders
• Building a social network that makes the Agile Release Train (ART) really work
• Aligning development to business goals
• Identifying dependencies and cultivating cross-team and cross-ART collaboration
• Syncing up demand and capacity
• Eliminating excessive Work in Process (WIP)
• Fast decision-making

‍

What does PI planning have to do with Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®)?

If you are just getting started with the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), you may be wondering how PI planning fits into the picture. 

Basically, SAFe is a set of guidelines and workflow patterns for implementing Agile at scale. And PI planning gives you a simple framework to bring your agile teams together. You can think of it as the framework within the framework.

PI planning is a vital part of SAFe. It’s a ceremony that brings together stakeholders from every team and gives them a plan for working together to decide on top features, identify dependencies, and make a plan for the next program increment. Ideally, PI planning allows for greater visibility across teams, smoother changes, and more coordination at every level of the organization.

Who should be involved in PI planning?

There are five critical roles involved in PI planning:

• Release train engineers (RTE)
• Product managers
• Product owners
• Scrum leaders (aka scrum masters)
• Developers
  

Let’s look at the responsibilities of each.

The release train engineer (RTE) is a leader and coach for the ART. Their role is about planning and facilitating the PI planning event. 

The RTE:

• Establishes and communicates the annual calendar
• Gets everything ready, including for pre- and post-PI planning meetings
• Manages risks and dependencies
• Creates Program PI objectives from team PI objectives and shares them with all the stakeholders
• Tracks progress
• Ensures strategic and execution alignment
• Facilitates system demos
  

The RTE is also the facilitator of the two-day event. In this role, they present the planning process and expected outcomes. They also run the management and problem solving session, as well as the retrospective at the end.

The product manager presents the program vision and any upcoming milestones. They review the draft plan and explain any changes to the planning and scope based on the management and problem solving session. This allows the project manager to manage and prioritize the workflow. Once the PI planning event is over, managers use the program objectives to update the roadmap. Project managers are also involved in pre- and post-PI planning meetings.

The product owner is responsible for maintaining and prioritizing the team backlog as well as iteration planning. They also have content authority to make decisions at the user story level during PI planning team breakout sessions. Product owners help teams define stories, estimate and sequence workflows, as well as draft team PI objectives. Finally, they’re responsible for conveying the vision and goals from upper management to the team.

The scrum leader (aka scrum master) helps the product owner by managing and leading processes as well as being a liaison between the product owner and the development team. They facilitate preparation for events and help to prepare system demos. The scrum master also helps teams estimate their capacity and finalize their team PI objectives, as well as manage deadlines, dependencies, and ambiguities during team breakout sessions.‍

Developers research, design, implement, test, maintain, and manage software systems. During PI planning, they participate in breakout sessions to build and refine user stories and acceptance criteria. They also help with plan adjustments, identify risks and dependencies, and support the team in drafting team PI objectives.

Now that you understand all the pieces of the PI planning event and who’s involved, let’s see what you have to do to prepare your team before the event.

What should we do to prepare for PI planning?

Every PI planning event requires strong preparation to make sure your teams get the most out of the event and meet their objectives afterwards. So what does preparation look like?

All stakeholders must prepare by assigning key roles, ensuring they as a team are aligned on strategy, and making sure everyone understands the planning process. Presenters will need to do the most to prepare getting their content ready for prime time. 

In addition, you’ll likely have hundreds of participants, so you’ll need to ensure the proper event planning happens. If your teams are meeting in person, you’ll need to prepare the facility. If you’re doing PI planning virtually, you’ll need to treat this like the virtual event that it is. Focus on technology (including audio, video, and internet connectivity) to make sure all remote teams can participate. 

Also, to make this work seamlessly for your organization, you may need to customize PI planning templates that support your needs. Consider the comfort needs of your teams too. The best planning happens when everyone is well fed and hydrated.

Having a clear picture of what needs to be done before and during this event, let’s turn to what happens afterward.

What happens after PI planning is done?

Your PI retrospective will include discussing what went well and what could have gone better. Then there should be a discussion about next steps. Next steps will include plans for moving team plans and objectives forward, coordinating calendars, and setting daily standups and iteration meetings.

Also, there will be post-PI planning events, which bring together stakeholders across all Agile Release Trains within the solution train to ensure everything is synchronized. Post-PI planning happens after all teams have completed their planning for the next increment. Teams present plans, explain objectives, and share milestones and expected timelines.

Post-PI planning happens among teams and instead of looking at features, these ceremonies outline capabilities, dependencies, and milestones for each iteration and ART. Potential risks are identified, discussed, and owned, resolved, accepted, or mitigated. Similar to regular PI planning events, post- PI plans go through a vote of confidence.