Program increment planning or PI planning is a critical component of the Agile Release Train (ART). This planning process ensures that everything goes as planned and in the right direction. Since ART is the central component of all collaborative teams, it is critical to always keep it on track.
This blog will provide you with a basic overview of PI planning, including its importance, steps, PI planning meaning, and more. We will also discuss SAFe PI planning, as well as the day-one agenda and day-two agenda of the PI event.
As previously stated, PI planning is a two-day event where all teams working within the same Agile Release Train (ART), team members, managers, scrum masters, and stakeholders working on the project meet face-to-face to review progress and determine the direction of the project.
This is typically a two-day event held every 8-12 weeks. Each team member and manager has a specific role to play or tasks to complete prior to the event. For instance,
- Development teams will work on user story planning & estimation.
- Engineers and UX (User Experience) teams collaborate to validate the planning.
- Prior to the PI planning event, product managers will work on prioritizing the designed features
The ultimate goal is to align all teams and members around a common vision, discuss product features, discuss competition, plan the roadmap, and identify and resolve cross-team dependencies.
PI planning– a critical component of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)– is essential in developing stable teams and teams of teams. You should be aware that in large organizations, multiple teams/trains are working toward the same goal. For this reason, teams must gather and review every 8-12 weeks to determine whether they are progressing in the right direction.
This is where PI planning comes into play. For example, it assists development teams in dealing with the difficulties of coordinating multiple teams. It also assists them in streamlining and navigating processes to deliver a suitable product
In a nutshell, the goal of program increment planning or PI planning is to bring all the parties involved in project development together on the same platform every three months to iron out differences, identify inter-team dependencies, evaluate progress trajectory, and so on.
As explained previously, PI planning is an important component of the SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework). In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that if PI planning is not conducted, SAFe is not accomplished. Meaning, in order to ensure that you are properly implementing SAFe, you must conduct PI planning on a regular basis
If you cannot meet in person, you can conduct virtual PI planning. This periodic exercise will allow Agile Release Train (ART) teams to synchronize, collaborate, and align towards the same goals.
Besides that, it is critical to adhere to the core Agile principle, especially as teams expand. However, as a team grows, implementing SAFe PI planning becomes more challenging. This is where PI planning will come in handy.
PI planning can be divided into two primary stages: preparation and agenda. To ensure the success of the PI planning, adequate preparation is required from the beginning and at each step. For example, each participant must contribute to the process.
The following are the key roles or key people who should be involved in the PI planning process:
- Release Train Engineers (RTEs)
- Product Owners
- Product Managers
- Scrum Masters
- Developers
Each of the above roles is important to PI planning and has a specific role to play. These individuals will collaborate to ensure the preparedness for the following aspects:
- Organizational readiness: The necessary arrangements must be made well in advance so that each team and stakeholder involved in the PI planning can be present on time and as needed. Ideally, preparations at the organizational level should begin at least a month before the event.
- Content readiness: Everyone from the presenters to the stakeholders to the managers should be given the materials that explain the vision and purpose of the event. Managers are responsible for preparing this content and sharing it with team members on the first day of the PI planning event.
- Facility readiness: It is expected that the event will be held in a large room so that all teams can be present at the same time and communicate easily with one another. You should also make plans for the members who will be present virtually for the PI planning event. Each table can have at least one computer with virtual conference facilities.
Now we arrive at the second stage of the PI planning process – the agenda. The Agile PI planning agenda can be divided into two parts: day one agenda and day two agenda. Let's take a quick look at each of these.
On the first day of the PI planning agenda discussion, the following information is communicated to team members, or the following steps are taken:
- Higher management will share details about how the business is doing with the teams.
- Product managers will present their vision and ideas for the next program increment (PI).
- The IT department will present its plans for strengthening the IT infrastructure at the upcoming PI planning event.
- RTEs will share the PI program outline as well as their expectations from each team.
- Each team will present its draft plans to other teams and stakeholders to give feedback
- Management will hold meetings to discuss draft plans and resolve the issues raised.
On the second day of the PI planning agenda discussion, the following information is communicated to team members, or the following steps are taken:
- Management will provide updates on any decisions made in the previous day's problem-solving meeting..
- The teams will consider these updates, revise their objectives, and rehare them with management
- Each team will share their dependencies on the other team, as well as the risk factors and objectives.
- Each risk is discussed in order to determine how to overcome it. Based on the discussion, each issue is classified as Resolved, Assigned, Accepted, Mitigated, and so on.
- After discussing all the risks and objectives of each team, the team will vote on whether or not they believe they will be able to meet the objectives by the future PI planning event.
This is how Agile PI planning is carried out. At the end of the second day, release train engineers will hold a meeting to review the event and determine what went well and what needs to be improved for the next PI planning.
PI planning is a critical component of SAFe and must be done on a regular basis, i.e., every 8-12 weeks. This exercise will assist organizations and teams in reducing their reliance on other teams, mitigating risk factors, fine-tuning their approaches, and more. The event also allows the Agile Release Train and the organization to align on the same goals.
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Pretend for a moment you’re in charge of planning and launching a massive music festival. You’ve got to coordinate food, logistics, hotel rooms, marketing efforts, parking, and dozens of high-profile celebrities. How would you go about making sure the event goes off without a hitch? Perfect planning.
Launching a software product isn’t much different. There is quite a bit of money riding on a successful launch, and there are many teams that must be managed and coordinated to make sure everything’s cohesive. That’s where PI planning really shines. Here are the details of PI planning so you get started throwing a successful software release. Or music festival: your choice.
What is PI planning?
It’s difficult to describe PI planning without defining terms around it. Here’s what you need to know before we dive in.
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe): This is a type of organization used in Lean-Agile software development. These principles try to make large teams and organizations as nimble as their smaller counterparts, so they can deliver high-quality products at a fast pace.
Agile Release Train (ART): Not an actual train. The ART is a group of several Agile teams who combine to develop and deliver specific solutions. The train usually contains between 50–125 people who all work together to develop and deploy specific solutions.
Program Increment (PI): A set of time for planning, building, testing, and getting feedback on a solution. This set of time is normally between 4 and 8 weeks long. During this time period, the ART will complete the following four steps:
- Plan: This is where PI planning comes in.
- Do: Execute the PI plan.
- Check: Check the solution with a system demo.
- Adjust: Inspect and adapt.
PI planning is the first step in determining what will be completed during the program increment by the ART.
What are the essential elements of PI planning?
As with everything else in the LEAN methodology, PI planning has a very specific set of criteria to guide ART through their PI.
The essential elements of PI planning are:
1. Business context: Where the enterprise currently stands and how effective the business’s solutions are at meeting customer needs.
2. Product vision: A proposed solution.
3. Architecture vision and development practice: How the system architect sees the vision from an engineering perspective.
4. Draft plan review: Outfits that need to fit within the PI. This should include dependencies and risks as well as objectives and capacity.
5. Management review: The management team will need to meet to address challenges in the draft plan and may propose scope changes or other solutions to problems.
6. Final plan review: Teams present their portion of the plan to the entire group and the Business Owners sign off on plans.
7. Risks: Each team is responsible for identifying risks and blockers. Each risk is addressed.
8. Plan rework: Teams rework their plans to address risks and blockers, if necessary.
9. Moving forward: This should be a brief recap of the planning event itself to determine how to improve the next PI planning. Then, teams move forward with their objectives.
How often is PI planning held?
PI planning is a two-day event that contains 8-12 weeks of PI. At the end of the designated PI, another PI planning event will be held and the process repeats itself.
Who is involved in PI planning?
The great thing about PI planning is how collaborative it is. During the PI planning event, every single person on the ART is involved. There are typically between 5-10 Agile trains and everyone participates. In fact, participation is of paramount importance so that all viewpoints can be considered.
What does each team do?
Teams are responsible for defining their roles in the vision and presenting any blockers or issues that could prevent them for achieving their output. Teams also need to determine how much they can achieve during the PI and then present their draft plan to the entire ART.
What is the goal of the PI planning event?
The PI planning event should yield two specific things:
- Agreed-upon PI objectives: Each team should present their individual objectives that contribute to the overall business value. There should be no confusion about what the goals are for each team.
- Program board: A program board breaks down deadlines, deliverables, and milestones that need to be met throughout the PI.
PI planning takes quite a bit of work and commitment, but it’s all worth it when you consider the benefits:
- Increased communication: Collaborative magic is in full force during PI planning. Teams come together and are more comfortable with communicating with each other throughout the PI.
- Making sure outputs enhance the business: Each team’s goal should enhance the business’s value. It’s a way of separating “nice to have” versus “important to have.”
- Establishing dependencies: If one team is waiting on another team to complete a deliverable, that’s time wasted. PI planning ensures an order of operations to maximize each team’s workflow.
- Working with practical capacity: Teams know what they’re capable of doing given their available work hours and limitations. During PI Planning, the ART can define feasible output based on capacity.
- Gain consensus: It’s easier and faster to get all teams and stakeholders to agree when they’re in the same meeting.
3 steps for PI planning
Believe it or not, the most successful PI Planning involves pre-planning. Here’s how to do it:
1. Pre-PI planning
Before the PI planning event, you should consider the scope of the meeting, the teams that will need to attend, and the outcomes you wish to achieve. You’ll also need to consider things like which rooms to use, who will facilitate the meeting, and meeting timing.
2. Create an agenda
You must keep to a strict agenda during the PI planning event, or it will quickly degrade into chaos. Consider an hour meeting for each essential element of PI planning and about six hours of breakout time for teams to meet together. You should also identify and meet with owners of specific sessions to make sure they understand what they’re expected to present during their timeslot. For instance, the System Architect will need to come prepared with an architecture vision. The agenda should be shared prior to the PI planning event.
3. Determine what will happen post-PI planning
You’ll need to establish the program board and its components and inform attendees what else you expect after PI planning. Teams should know which backlog items they’ll be working on and have their team’s objectives and timeline. The easiest way to do this is to keep a cloud-based record of the meeting that can be accessed by everyone.
PI planning with Lucidspark
Remote and distributed teams can still participate in PI planning with Lucidspark. Lucidspark allows for increased collaboration for remote workers and real-time cloud-based meeting documentation. Each aspect of PI planning is made easier with Lucidspark, from pre-planning to the actual PI planning event itself. Program boards can be created and presented in real time and teams can know exactly what their outcomes should be over the course of the PI.
Create a PI planning board to track deadlines, deliverables, and milestones.
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