SAFe®

What is agile PI planning?

PI Planning is a critical event for agile teams to set a clear direction for the upcoming Program Increment or Planning Interval (SAFe 6.0). It helps teams to identify potential risks, assess impact and effort, and benefit from coordination and alignment around priorities and milestones

PI Planning at its core promotes agility. By fostering closer alignment between stakeholders and development teams, it enables effective decision-making, promotes transparency, and encourages adaptive planning. This iterative approach empowers teams to continuously refine their strategies, ensuring successful outcomes and delivering value to stakeholders.

As a result it is necessarily a collaborative process - that ultimately optimizes the delivery of value by blending predictability and agility, while maximizing team efficiency and productivity. But we often overlook how to make the PI Planning event itself more agile.

While an important ceremony for any organization aiming to stay ahead of the competition in today's market - it can also be daunting. From figuring out the right approach to creating feedback loops that keep individuals focused and motivated, there are plenty of complexities when it comes to mastering agile PI Planning.

Additionally in today's distributed landscape, agile teams face unique challenges when it comes to effective collaboration and planning. The key to agile PI Planning agile requires a shift towards more flexible, collaborative and efficient processes and environments.

The key to agile PI Planning requires a shift towards more flexible, collaborative and efficient processes and environments.

This blog post will provide an overview on what challenges there are to agile PI Planning in Jira, and how you can overcome them using Jira together with Easy Agile programs.

Top 3 challenges of agile PI Planning in Jira

1. Collaborating across tools and timezones

Real-time collaboration is essential for agile PI planning, but it is challenging to implement in a remote or distributed environment. The pandemic accelerated the shift to a remote workforce, creating new challenges for PI planning.

Agile teams in Jira striving to effectively plan often face a version of these challenges. One of the most common obstacles teams face is the lack of a visual, intuitive platform that can accommodate the dynamic nature of agile planning. Teams end up using physical boards or switching tools, requiring manual work to implement back into Jira, which can disrupt the flow of work and lead to inefficiencies.

2. Misalignment and miscommunication

PI planning aims to break down silos and bring together multiple teams working on the same sprint. However, with so many teams involved in the planning process, it is common for teams to prioritize their specific goals or issues, leading to inefficient communication. The challenge lies in getting everyone to speak the same language, work to a shared understanding of priorities and ensuring they are all on the same page.

Another hurdle is accommodating cross-team dependencies. Agile teams often work closely with other teams across their organization, and their workstreams are often intertwined. Teams need a straightforward way to visualize these dependencies, to anticipate blockers and plan effectively. What’s more, the process of creating and managing dependencies across multiple teams can become complex and time-consuming.

3. Not being able to see the bigger picture

Lastly, long-term or bigger picture planning can be a struggle. It is easy for PI planning to become too focused on processes and lose sight of the bigger picture where we need to align our goals, objectives and capabilities. In short, it is crucial to align PI planning with the business and customer needs. The planning process should aim to deliver value to customers, build on existing success, and address new challenges. Achieving this requires collaboration, discipline, and creativity.

Teams need to be able to see the big picture and plan work in alignment with the business’ goals and strategy. to Without it, the disconnect can make it challenging for teams to align their day-to-day tasks with their long term goals. The lack of a dedicated space for capturing objectives and their business value can also lead to misalignment and missed opportunities.

So what is needed for agile PI Planning?

When looking for an add-on or additional solution to work with Jira to solve for agile PI Planning, it is key to find one that provides:

1. A shared view and understanding to maintain transparency and alignment for the ART, especially program-level visibility
2. Connection between business priorities and the work of delivery teams
3. Dependency management
4. Real-time collaboration
5. A tool that everyone can use and access to continue collaboration

Agile PI Planning with Jira and Easy Agile Programs

By using Jira and Easy Agile Programs for your PI planning, you can ensure that your agile workflows are streamlined, collaborative, and in line with your strategic objectives. Easy Agile Programs empowers teams to adapt quickly to changes, manage risks better, and deliver value more efficiently. What’s more, it is a native app embedded in Jira, meaning there is little to no configuration as the tool is set up using your underlying Jira data.

Read on to find out how it helps solve the challenges of agile PI Planning specifically.

1. A shared space to collaborate and iterate

The Program Board (ART Planning Board)

Remember, the key to agile planning is flexibility and collaboration, and the ability to adjust plans as necessary. At the same time, it is important to make the process as easy and intuitive as possible and to avoid wasting time on administrative tasks.

If your teams are in Jira, the first place to start is by creating an environment in Jira so there’s less manual overhead and cognitive load for everybody to be able to participate and for planning to translate into delivering. Easy Agile Programs digitises the SAFe Program Board (ART Planning Board for SAFe 6.0) which provides transparency to all members of the ART.

It is built using native Jira issuse and boards, and acts as a single source of truth during and beyond planning. It’s here we have a holistic view of the work we’ve committed to as an ART and an indication of whether we’re on track to achieve it, with the flexibility of making adjustments without leaving the tool should we need to.

The digitised Program Board in Easy Agile Programs is highly visual and also filterable, allowing you to focus in on specific teams, status of issues, or features/epics for focussed ART, PO and coach syncs during the Program Increment/Planning Interview.

The Team Planning Board

Unlike other tools, teams have a dedicated Team Planning Board for team breakout sessions. Here teams can break down features into stories and schedule them within sprints, estimate capacity and plan work collaboratively within and across teams. Given that teams have access to their own backlog and are scheduling work onto their own board in Jira, there is no downtime or double handling.

2. Anticipating and visualizing dependencies

Visualizing and managing program risks and dependencies is not only crucial for effective Planning - but it is also a clear indicator of how well we stay aligned as teams within the ART. Easy Agile Programs is a powerful way to visualize dependencies, enabling teams not only to create, identify, and understand the health of dependencies, but also to resolve dependencies across multiple teams. This fosters collaboration, breaks down siloes and mitigates potential roadblocks to progressing the work.

On the Team Planning Board

When teams are at the stage of breaking down features into stories or epics, they can easily create and understand dependencies within and across teams.This means that work is never created without understanding how it aligns or conflicts with other teams in the ART to maintain alignment. Creating dependencies is easily done through drag and drop:

On the Program Board

Identifying dependencies and potential risks to scheduling work is a critical part of PI Planning. Aside from visible dependency lines, Easy Agile Programs also visualises the health of those dependencies. Green means the dependency is healthy, orange means it is at risk, and red indicates a conflict. Black dependency lines indicate dependencies external the PI or Program - critical for the Release Train Engineers to address between ARTs.

This is all visible on the Program Board where we can also filter by dependencies:

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3. Bigger picture planning and alignment

Third level hierarchy

Connecting the work of the teams to what the business cares about is instrumental in the delivery of value. Easy Agile Programs provides the connective tissue between higher level business priorities and initiatives with third level hierarchy, making it easy to understand what is scheduled to deliver against business priorities and how it is progressing.

PI Objectives

From the Team Planning Board  can easily create draft PI Objectives and link them to Jira issues, ensuring alignment and transparency with business value. This is a critical part of linking what the team is working on to broader business objectives, and Easy Agile Programs literally links the issues to these objectives so that we can filter the work by objective.

Agile planning is iterative, and plans often require adjustments.

Can I still use Easy Agile Programs for planning if I'm not practising SAFe?

Absolutely. Easy Agile Programs is not just for teams practising the SAFe methodology.

The tool is flexible and adaptable, making it equally beneficial for any agile team that values interactive, visual planning. Regardless of the specific framework you use, Easy Agile Programs facilitates clear communication, makes it easier to manage dependencies, provides a shared view of team capacities and progress, and aligns teams with overarching business objectives.

This way, whether you're practicing Scrum, Kanban, or your own unique blend of agile methodologies, you can still leverage the power of Easy Agile Programs to foster a more collaborative and efficient planning process.

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Many organizations, especially those in highly regulated industries, struggle to manage large-scale projects. SAFe, or the Scaled Agile Framework, can provide a solution. (OR That's where SAFe, or the Scaled Agile Framework, comes into play.)

SAFe is a framework designed to help businesses make sustainable changes on a large scale. It offers training and guidance for implementing agile practices across the enterprise, whether it's at a small team level, department level, or throughout the entire organization.

In this blog post, we will delve deeper into the benefits of implementing SAFe, focusing specifically on how it can be utilized within the financial services industry to create a lean enterprise.

Benefits of SAFe for financial services

SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) is an incredibly valuable approach for organizations looking to enhance their operations. By adopting SAFe, financial services firms can achieve numerous benefits that are specific to their industry.

1. Business Agility: SAFe enables financial services firms to become more adaptable and responsive to market dynamics. By adopting SAFe practices at an enterprise level, organizations can foster a culture of continuous improvement, allowing them to quickly adapt to changing customer demands, regulatory requirements, and emerging technologies.
2. Enhanced Customer Experience: In today's competitive financial services landscape, providing exceptional customer experiences is paramount. SAFe promotes customer-centricity by encouraging regular feedback loops with customers throughout the development process. This allows financial institutions to gather insights, identify pain points, and rapidly iterate on their products and services, ensuring they meet the evolving needs and expectations of their customers.
3. Accelerated Time-to-Market: Time is of the essence in the financial industry. SAFe empowers organizations to speed up their time-to-market by breaking down silos and fostering collaboration between departments. By leveraging agile practices, financial services firms can respond quickly to market opportunities, launch innovative solutions faster ensuring they are first to seize market opportunities
4. Risk Mitigation: Compliance and risk management are critical considerations for financial services organizations. SAFe provides a structured governance framework that incorporates compliance requirements into the development process. This ensures that products and services adhere to regulatory standards.
5. Improved Operational Efficiency: Financial services firms deal with significant complexity, from managing intricate financial systems to addressing regulatory demands. SAFe helps optimize operational efficiency by promoting transparency, communication, and continuous improvement. By implementing Lean principles and agile practices, organizations can eliminate waste, optimize processes, and enhance overall operational performance.
6. Employee Engagement and Empowerment: SAFe emphasizes the empowerment of teams, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning. This approach leads to increased employee engagement, as team members feel more involved in decision-making processes and have a sense of ownership over their work. The result is a motivated and empowered workforce that drives organizational success.

Visualizing Dependencies for Seamless Collaboration and Timely Delivery

In the intricate world of SAFe, covering every aspect can be overwhelming. For the purpose of this blog, let's focus on a specific use case.

The financial services industry often deals with complex projects involving multiple teams and stakeholders. In such scenarios, visualizing and understanding dependencies among teams becomes critical. This is where the SAFe program board comes in. It acts as a centralized space for teams to effectively visualize, manage dependencies, and progress transparently.

Consider the example of Easy Agile Bank, preparing to launch its self-service banking platform. Various teams, including software, marketing, and customer success, collaborate to make this launch successful. To ensure a seamless rollout, understanding team dependencies and efficient work scheduling are paramount. The goal is to prevent bottlenecks that could delay the launch of the new self-service banking app.

Let’s take a closer look at what this might look like. Below you can see the Team Planning board in Easy Agile Programs for the Software team. The red, yellow, green and black lines indicate dependencies. Some dependencies exist within the software team, while others are cross-team dependencies with the marketing team.

The color of the dependency lines reflects their health status. A red dependency represents a conflict, yellow indicates at risk, green signifies a healthy state and black indicates external dependencies outside the current view, such as work in the backlog or in an other Program Increments. To avoid bottlenecks, you need to address the red dependencies and the yellow where possible.

With Easy Agile Programs, visualizing dependencies becomes effortless. Teams can act swiftly and adjust plans accordingly to prevent delays in the app launch. For instance, the software team identifies a red dependency with the marketing team regarding the live chat system. While the software team plans to set it up in Sprint 2, the marketing team don’t plan on mapping out the live chat experience and messaging until Sprint 3. The dependency line serves as a visual indicator, prompting teams to discuss and reschedule work.

After a brief discussion, the software team decides to reschedule the live chat setup to Sprint 4. As a result, the dependency line turns green, indicating a smooth progress and successful avoidance of a potential bottleneck.

“When I would ask colleagues how long it would take to untangle and understand dependencies, they would suggest a week. With Easy Agile Programs, it took us three minutes”.

Stefan Höhn, NFON

Harness the Power of the SAFe Program Board

Overall, the program board can help teams prioritize their work and make informed decisions about resource allocation. By visualizing dependencies, teams can identify critical path items and focus their efforts on the most important tasks that need to be completed first. This ensures that teams are working in a coordinated, transparent manner and reduces the risk of unnecessary delays or conflicts.

The SAFe program board acts as a valuable tool for teams to effectively manage dependencies, promote collaboration, and achieve alignment in large-scale agile projects.

Easy Agile Programs allows teams to identify and create dependencies effortlessly, empowering teams to navigate the complex financial services landscape with ease.

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“The people who plan the work do the work” is the unwritten rule of the Scaled Agile Framework.

Yet, this can be easier said than done when we’re looking at multiple teams of people needing to plan together.

Add in the complexities of large enterprises that face their own unique challenges - ranging from product development to budget to implementing feedback to final delivery - and suddenly the idea of how to bring teams together for planning can feel harder again.

If you’re familiar with the Scaled Agile Framework, you will already be aware SAFe is designed to facilitate better collaboration and communication between multiple cross-functional groups. The core way to do this with SAFe is Program Increment or PI Planning (Planning Interval Planning in SAFe 6.0)

A plan can take on so many different forms - even just between teams - but with SAFe it is easier to see what ‘good’ looks like when it comes to efficient PI Planning.

The SAFe program board or ART planning board (SAFe 6.0), is a critical tool and output of PI Planning. It is a visual summary of features or goals, cross-team dependencies, and other factors that impact their delivery. Not only does this help with transparency, but it also increases flexibility that, in turn, helps minimize delays and unhealthy dependencies.

What is often overlooked is that PI Planning plays a crucial role in setting teams or the entire program up for success - including implementing other SAFe ceremonies or events.

In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about program boards, including why they’re important in the planning process and how larger teams can use them in PI Planning and beyond.

We’ll also explore exactly how Easy Agile Programs digitises the SAFe program board, not only allowing the people who plan the work to do the work, but also allowing you to plan the work in the environment where the work gets done - in Jira.

NB: while the program board is referred to as 'ART Planning Board' in the updated 6.0 version of the Scaled Agile Framework, it is the same artefact and plays the same role in PI Planning and beyond.

What is a program board?

What does your teams plan or schedule typically look like?

Would it indicate to you what work was being done? Who was doing it? Perhaps even an indication of when they would and any key deadlines these teams are working towards?

The headline here is that a program board is all of this, but also more.

The program board is a visualization of the work being committed to during the Program Increment / Planning Interval or PI. It is simultaneously the facilitator of planning as well as the plan itself.

A typical idea of a program board - especially for collocated PI Planning sessions - is literally a physical board on a wall.
It would show:

• Columns: marking the iterations for the increment
• Rows: representing different teams within that increment
• Sticky notes: describing the features that teams are working on or used to indicate milestones that they’re working towards
• Strings: between these features to indicate if there are any dependencies

But how does a program board help the planning process?

A program board facilitates better team collaboration because it streamlines project communication and planning, while also ensuring better communication between the involved teams.

Moreover, program boards help define the responsibility of each team involved in making the idea a reality, which in turn, helps to streamline the process as a whole.

During PI Planning, the program board supports teams to visualize and manage dependencies across the PI; giving them greater clarity of the work in detail, how the work relates to what the business is trying to achieve and to each other, what tasks need to be done, and crucially, whether there are any issues that may cause delays.

A program board is simultaneously the facilitator of planning as well as the plan itself.

To understand how program boards help with the planning process, let’s go over the different components found on them.

How to set up your SAFe program board for successful PI planning

According to Scaled Agile, there are two primary outputs of PI Planning:

1. Committed PI Objectives
2. Program board - with new feature delivery dates, dependencies among teams and relevant Milestones

So if you’re following SAFe and doing PI Planning you should finish PI Planning with a program board.

During PI Planning, not only do teams discuss and define the features and dependencies, but they also establish milestones across the PI.

This is where a digitised PI Planning tool can really benefit remote or hybrid teams doing PI Planning - the same information is planned in the same place.

Here are a few tips to help you create a SAFe program board.

1. Setting up the board itself

Not to be underestimated, the bare bones of the program board need to be set up.

There are two key elements here:

• Sprint or iteration columns:
  • The right number based on how many iterations/sprints will be in your PI, including a final one for iteration planning
• Rows or swimlanes:
  • One for milestones/events - typically the first
  • One for each team
  • May also have a swimlane for shared services, suppliers or other teams not in the Agile Release Train (ART)

Here is what this may look like:

If you were at this stage of your program board in Easy Agile Programs, your board would look like this:

In Easy Agile Programs, each team represented in a dedicated swimlane represents an agile board in Jira. So the issues that you will be scheduling for this team in sprints during PI Planning and beyond, will be reflected on their agile board and vice versa.

The start and end date for the PI and the number and length of your sprints can all be edited to suit your organisation’s workflows.

When you are in editing mode and are ready to schedule features, the shared team features swimlane also appears at the top to visually indicate if there is work to be scheduled across multiple teams.

2. Start with features and milestones

During PI Planning, Product Management shares the product/solution vision and this commonly also means the next top 10 upcoming features for the teams to take into the PI from the backlog. (We know from our customers that sometimes this can be a lot more!)

We also want to start by knowing which milestones we are working towards. Often these can represent product release dates, external deliverables or deadlines like preparing a demo or showcase for a trade show, marketing launches or events. Having these visualized on the program board helps teams to easily see what they are working towards, but also to inform prioritization of the specific features needed to help meet delivery of that milestone.

If you are working with a physical or simple digital program board, features and Milestones are represented by ‘sticky notes’ - placed in the appropriate swimlane and/or colour to indicate this information as well as the team responsible for it and the time frame:

So what does this look like in Easy Agile Programs at this point?

Milestones are highly visual

• Milestones can be customised to indicate start/end date and colour. They run across all team swimlanes so teams can easily see how their work relates to an upcoming deliverable or event.
• Milestones still have a dedicated place at the top of the program board but this can be collapsed if desired

Features are native Jira issues

• Features in Easy Agile Programs are native Jira issues, commonly epics. You can easily click on the issue key from the program board to see more information via the issue view.
• Features can be easily scheduled from the backlog into a swimlane through drag and drop, or created via the program board. To indicate when a feature is intended to start and be completed, simply drag and drop the edge of the issue:

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3. Identify dependencies

With the features done, the next thing that teams should look for is dependencies. Remember the strings we mentioned before?

Dependencies between features and teams are represented with string on a program board when it’s on a wall or lines between those features in a digital tool.

Sticky notes in a different colour, like red, indicate a significant dependency. For example that feature may have more than one feature relying on it to go to schedule.

To explain this, let’s consider an example.

Imagine Team X realizes they cannot develop a feature until Team Y develops an API thanks to the program board. So, what both teams can do is talk to each other and come up with a solution that works for everybody, leading to better collaboration among the teams.

After an agreement is reached, a dependency will then be placed on the board so everyone has the same understanding about the dependency, and how it’ll be resolved. A piece of string will be attached to each card to demonstrate this:

The nature of dependencies mean that something is required to be completed in order for something else to be done.

To be able to more easily see when dependencies are scheduled, Easy Agile Programs has a traffic light system of red, orange and green dependencies to indicate dependency health.

Dependency health is represented as follows:

• A red line indicates the dependant issue is scheduled in a sprint after the dependency (conflict)
• An orange line indicates the dependant and dependency are scheduled in the same sprint (a risk)
• A green line indicates the dependant issue is scheduled in a sprint before its dependency (healthy)
• A black line indicates the dependency exists with issues outside of the current view. Whether this is the current Agile Release Train / Program, or with a future or past increment.

This easily indicates to a Release Train Engineer or a Program Manager where they ought to focus and to be able to address any scheduling issues during planning.

Easy Agile Programs also allows you to visualize dependencies between issues within and across teams from the Team Planning Board. This provides a really focussed view of the work for a particular team for the PI, and how that work relates to other teams:

Program boards are needed for better collaboration

The power of the program board lies in having a single view of what a collection of teams are committing to - together - and exactly how that work relates to each other. It helps organize planning sessions by summarizing future dependencies across all teams and sprints. As a result, scrum masters, release train engineers, product managers and business owners can easily identify and prioritize cross-team conversations that matter the most.

Running a scaled planning session or PI Planning ceremony, especially for the first time, can be daunting.

But if you’re successful in developing a solid program board as part of your PI planning process, you won't have to worry about chasing down your co-worker or team member to meet deadlines. The key here is to make sure you’ve scheduled the most important features to take into the PI, identified cross-team dependencies, and have visualised any milestones or deadlines to ensure they can be realistically achieved.

The program board can become more impactful though, when it is more than just a plan. Building a program board in an online tool with the added capability of it representing the actual work that’s planned to be done means that it has a life beyond PI Planning; it becomes the living document of the teams progress and a means to identify when there are any blockers to that progress.

In order for agile teams to be agile and continuously and iteratively deliver value, they need to be equipped with a program board that can help them respond to any changes so that they can plan for success but also progress towards it.

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The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversations.

Agile Manifesto, 2001

As true as this statement was when it was written, the Covid-19 pandemic irrevocably changed the way we work, live and communicate.

As organisations and individuals we found ourselves quickly needing to adapt to an ever-changing environment. Now that we have survived, we have to lean into this new way of doing things in the workplace so that we can thrive.

But what about our agile ceremonies?

One of the main reasons companies transition to agile is to make business processes and outcomes more efficient. So how do we take those principles and practices and preserve their integrity in a remote environment?

If you’re familiar with the Scaled Agile Framework, you’ll know that PI Planning is an agile ceremony that is at the heart of implementing SAFe.

Traditionally a face-to-face event, PI Planning is a scaled cross-team planning ceremony that aims to bring together multiple teams to plan - aligning them around a shared mission and vision for the upcoming quarter or increment.

SAFe still advises that PI Planning is still collocated where possible, and it does have its benefits.

However many teams, even before the pandemic, used PI Planning software to run their planning process and to make it more efficient and accessible to distributed PI Planning. But as with most things we have taken online since Covid, we are at the mercy of the tools we use to determine how effective we can be.

The truth is, unless you can get all members within an Agile Release Train - Business Owners, stakeholders, product management, Release Train Engineers, Scrum Masters, and teams - physically in the one room at the one time, considering alternatives is necessary.

It’s important that everyone is present during PI Planning, but that doesn’t mean they have to be physically present to make PI Planning a success

Remote PI Planning with Easy Agile Programs

We are now beyond the period where we needed to adapt to remote work. Our own business agility has been tested and we have needed to evolve.

Since we first launched Easy Agile Programs, we have continued to build on the capabilities it has to help teams and organizations around the world thrive in a remote environment.

With a simple but powerful tool seamlessly integrated with Jira, the latest version of Easy Agile Programs has a range of features aimed at helping distributed teams through the PI Planning ceremony and to build out a long-lived but flexible digital Program board in Jira.

Moving to remote or hybrid PI Planning doesn’t need to jeopardize yours or your customer’s success. In fact with the right tool, it can enhance it by saving time on context switching, complex configurations and double-handling.

The PI Planning Agenda

Regardless of whether you are following a more traditional 2-day PI Planning agenda, or need to accommodate a split agenda in a distributed environment, the core agenda items are the same. We’ll walk you through each of those and how Easy Agile Programs supports these key features.

Source: Scaled Agile

Setting the business context

PI Planning kicks off with the Business Owner(s) or senior executives giving a presentation where they describe “the current state of the business, share the Portfolio Vision, and present perspective on how effectively existing solutions are addressing customer needs” (Scaled Agile - PI Planning).

In the Program details section of Easy Agile Programs, Business Owners can share a recorded video presentation with all members of the ART, or a Zoom or video conferencing link.

As a result, the presentation isn’t restricted to team members being physically present for this agenda item, and can be referred to throughout the PI Planning session and beyond.

Setting the Product/Solution Vision

Next in the agenda, Product Management will present the current vision, typically in the form of the top 10 upcoming features.

Rather than presenting the top 10 features in a list on a slide or document, Program Managers can access Jira Features (Epics) right within Easy Agile Programs and can schedule them onto a visual timeline for the duration of the Program Increment (PI).

The Program Roadmap ensures all teams are aligned on the committed features for a PI and provides visibility into the direction of the Program for all stakeholders.

It’s at this point in the PI Planning ceremony that Product Managers may also call out any upcoming milestones.

According to Scaled Agile, ‘Milestones mark specific points on the development timeline, and they can be invaluable in measuring and monitoring the product evolution and risk.’

Easy Agile Programs enable you to create highly visible milestones on the Program Roadmap to highlight key delivery dates, external events, or business milestones. These can also be created on the Program Board, or at the team level on the Team Planning Board. They are represented by colored flags at the top of the Roadmap that spans the team swimlanes that make up the Program.

Team Breakout Sessions

In the team breakout, teams work individually to estimate the capacity for each Sprint in the PI. Teams create new or identify existing issues from their backlog that will help achieve the set features. The draft team plans are visible to all members of the ART.

To make this easier, Easy Agile Programs has dedicated Team Planning Boards accessible to all who have access to the Program. Simply clicking on a team’s name will take you to their team Planning Board where they are able to set capacity for each sprint within the PI:

Teams have the context of their committed features at the top of their Team Planning Board, both those that are shared by more than one team in the ART or are specific to their team.

To plan the work needed to achieve these features, teams are able to drag and drop existing issues from their backlog or quick create new issues right within the planning board.

During this session, teams also create draft PI Objectives. These are a critical part of linking what the team is working on to broader business objectives, and you don’t need to leave the Team Planning Board to create them.

In Easy Agile Programs you can indicate whether the objective is committed or uncommitted, provide a description, and directly link the Jira issues scheduled to achieve this objective with the objective itself:

During PI Planning, Business Owners will have a discussion with teams about their PI Objectives which provides an invaluable opportunity to align. The Team Planning provides the artefact to facilitate those conversations, and allows Business Owners or stakeholders to assign a business value directly within the tool.

An important part of the team breakout sessions is identifying any dependencies or potential risks to scheduling work. Through drag and drop or create dependencies mode, it is very easy to create and visualize dependencies across teams in the Team Planning Board.

Aside from highly visible dependency lines, our customers also appreciate being able to see the health of those dependencies. If a dependency line is green it means the dependency is healthy, if it’s orange it is at risk, and if it is red it means we are blocked i.e. the work needed to be done to achieve an earlier piece of work is scheduled after it.

And the best bit of all? This is visible to all in the ART in a digitized SAFe Program Board.

On the Program Board, we have the option to have a detailed view with team-level issues visible or to hide them so we can just see features.

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Program Risks

During PI Planning, we need to be able to identify risks and dependencies to assess whether teams in the Agile Release Train are set up for success to reach their PI Objectives.

A digital Program Board provides transparency to all members of the ART during PI Planning and acts as a single source of truth during and beyond planning. A digital artefact enables the Program Board to become more than a plan, and lives longer than the strings and post-it notes on a physical wall.

We know that visualizing feature-level dependencies is crucial to not only understanding but also troubleshooting the health or status of a PI. Not just during PI Planning itself, but also throughout the PI during execution.

The Program Board in Easy Agile Programs is highly visual and also filterable. Colored lines that indicate the health of the dependency ensure we have an at-a-glance view of significant dependencies that pose a risk to our PI.

Additionally, our scheduling conflicts feature surfaces when there is work scheduled outside of its associated feature, to immediately and clearly indicate where there is a risk.

The ability to filter by dependency health and team in Easy Agile Programs helps to focus conversations around risks during PI Planning.

Plan rework

After presenting plans to the ART and discussing scope, cross-team dependencies, required resources, and risks, teams then proceed to a confidence vote.

If needed, a closing part of planning is to rework any plans so that all teams within the Agile Release Train are confident in what they are committing to.

This may involve rescheduling to address dependencies, breaking work down further, adjusting estimations, etc.

Reworking is simple and streamlined within Easy Agile Programs. The ability to inline edit issue estimates and summaries in real time makes any rework fast and simple. Dragging and dropping an issue easily reschedules it and any impact on associated dependencies can be seen all at once.

All changes made to issues in Easy Agile Programs are automatically reflected in Jira.

Find out how Easy Agile Programs can make PI Planning easy for your collocated, hybrid or remote teams.

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What about beyond planning?

We’ve examined the merits of remote PI Planning using a digital tool like Easy Agile Programs but something that so often gets overlooked is - what happens after planning?

A plan remains just that if it’s not translated into action. A plan isn’t made not to be fulfilled, and this is where a distributed or hybrid environment can be challenging.

Your Program Board may set you up for success, but ask yourself - how will you know if you’re on track to achieve it?

This is where having a digital, user-friendly tool that uses native Jira issues helps. At the end of PI Planning, teams have created a plan in the form of a Program Board in Jira, but they are also ready for sprint one as soon as PI Planning is done.

From there, the Program Board is set up and capable of evolving, not rolled up and stored away. This is what Easy Agile Programs is designed to do - to provide transparency but also flexibility so that the plan can necessarily adapt and be agile while maintaining momentum towards progress.

So what’s up next for Easy Agile Programs? Can you help us improve it? Check out our product roadmap and if there is something missing let us know.

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You may be just starting out, or you may have worked with agile methodologies for a while, but we’re sure you can agree that scaling agile in a large organization can be daunting. PI Planning is key to scaling agile, so we’ve developed this guide to help you run successful planning sessions, and build your confidence for your next scaled planning event.

We'll cover:

• What is PI Planning?
• Why do PI Planning?
• What is the goal of PI Planning?
• What should be included in the PI Planning agenda?
• What happens in the first part of the PI Planning meeting?
• Why is a confidence vote held at the end of PI Planning?
• When is PI Planning held?
• What is a pre-PI Planning event and when is it needed?
• PI Planning in SAFe
• PI Planning in Scrum
• What is the difference between a PI Roadmap and a Solution Roadmap?
• What is a program?
• What is a program board?
• Who should be involved in PI Planning?
• How to prepare for PI Planning
• What happens after PI Planning?
• What is a post-PI Planning event?
• Remote or hybrid PI Planning
• Common PI Planning mistakes
• Using Jira for PI Planning

Let’s start with the basics…

What is PI Planning?

PI Planning stands for Program Increment Planning.

PI Planning sessions are regularly scheduled events where teams within the same Agile Release Train (ART) meet to align and agree on what comes next. Teams will aim to align on goals and priorities, discuss features, plan the roadmap, and identify cross-team dependencies.

The goal is to align the teams to the mission and each other. Here are the essential elements of PI Planning:

• 2 full day events run every 8-12 weeks (depending on the length of your increments)
• Product Managers work to prioritize the planned features for the increment beforehand
• Development teams own user story planning and estimation
• Engineers and UX teams work to validate the planning

Why do PI Planning?

PI Planning is incredibly beneficial for large-scale agile organizations. PI Planning enables:

• Communication
• Visibility
• Collaboration

To understand the impact, let’s look at an example of a large organization that hasn’t yet implemented PI Planning. This organization has 250 teams and 6,500 team members. These teams rarely speak to each other, outside of dealing with a critical issue that has forced them to collaborate.

Alignment across these teams happens at the leadership team level, and they have multiple levels of managers in between who cascade information down with varying success. There is a constant battle for resources, budget, and opportunities to work on the most exciting projects.

Their projects have a habit of conflicting - one team would release something and then it would break something in another team’s project.

PI Planning is the first time many big companies get their teams together in a room or on the same call to talk to each other. This is a chance to have important conversations about who is working on what.

Why is this important?

1. When you’re touching a system or a code repository, you need to know how it’s going to impact another team
2. You might need to do some work to enable another team to work on their feature first (and vice versa)

With proper planning and collaboration, teams can get things done more effectively, release with more predictability, and stay on budget.

All very good reasons to do PI Planning.

What is the goal of PI Planning?

PI Planning is an essential part of the Scaled Agile Framework, a framework that’s designed to bring agile to large companies with multiple teams.

SAFe PI Planning helps teams in the Agile Release Train (ART) synchronize, collaborate, and align on workflows, objectives, releases, and more.

Without PI Planning, teams don’t have structured communication. They may not know what the other teams are working on, which can cause a lot of problems. For example, two teams might be working on different features without realizing there’s a dependency, which could hold up the release or require a significant rework of the code.

The goal of PI Planning is to have all your teams aligned strategically and enable cross-team collaboration to avoid these potential problems.

Now that we’ve covered off the “why”, let’s dig a bit deeper into the “what”. The best way to get a picture of what happens during PI Planning is to take a look at an agenda.

What should be included in the PI Planning agenda?

Here’s a standard PI Planning agenda template:

Day 1 AgendaDay 2 Agenda8:00 - 9:00 | Business Context8:00 - 9:00 | Planning Adjustments9:00 - 10:30 | Product/Solution Vision9:00 - 11:00 | Team Breakouts10:30 - 11:30 | Architecture Vision and Development Practices11:00 - 13:00 | Final Plan Review and Lunch11:30 - 13:00 | Planning Context and Lunch13:00 - 14:00 | ART Risks13:00 - 16:00 | Team Breakouts14:00 - 14:15 | Confidence Vote16:00 - 17:00 | Draft Plan Review14:15 - ??  |Plan Rework?17:00 - 18:00 | Management Review and Problem Solving?? | Planning Retrospective and Moving Forward

Source: scaledagileframework.com/pi-planning

This agenda might be perfect for you, or you might make changes based on the needs of your teams.

Distributed teams, very large ARTs, and other factors might require you to be creative with the schedule. Some sessions may need more time, while others can be shortened. If you have teams in multiple time zones, your PI Planning agenda may need to go over 3-4 days. If it’s your first PI Planning event, try the standard agenda, get feedback from your teams, and experiment with different formats next time.

What happens in the first part of the PI Planning meeting?

The first part of the PI Planning meeting is designed to set the context for the planning that happen next.

Day 1 usually kicks off with a presentation from a Senior Executive or Business Owner. The agenda allows an hour to talk about the current state of the business. They highlight specific customer needs, how the current products address these needs, and potential gaps.

After that, the Product Management team will share the current vision for your product or solution. They’ll talk about any changes that have occurred since the last PI Planning session (usually around 3 months prior). They’ll describe what’s coming up, including milestones and the next 10 features that are planned. This session should take around 1.5 hours.

Why is a confidence vote held at the end of PI Planning?

The confidence vote is a seemingly small but very important part of PI Planning towards the end of the event.

It is important the team is confident in committing to the objectives and work that is planned. The Release Train Engineer will ask teams to vote on this.

Everyone participating in planning needs to vote. This could be via a raise of hands (and fingers) or it could be via the tool you’re using. For example, the Team Planning board in Easy Agile Programs allows each team member to enter their confidence vote.

If the average vote across the room is at least three out of five, the plan is a go-ahead. If it’s less it’ll need reworking (until it reaches a high confidence level). If anyone votes just one or two, they’ll have the chance to share their reasoning.

The confidence vote is all about making sure that the attendees are in alignment and that they agree that the plan in its current form is possible within the given timeframe. Speaking of timing, let’s talk about how and where PI Planning actually fits into your company calendar.

When is PI Planning held?

Many companies find that 8-12 weeks (which adds up to 4-6 x 2-week iterations) is the right amount of time for an increment.

Some companies hold quarterly PI Planning, for example:

• Q1 PI Planning: December
• Q2 PI Planning: March
• Q3 PI Planning: June
• Q4 PI Planning: September

However, the timing and frequency will depend on how long each program increment is scheduled to last and may need to accommodate holidays.

The good thing about PI Planning events is that they happen regularly on a fixed schedule, which means you can plan for them well ahead of time. That means teams and Business Owners have plenty of notice to ensure they can show up for the event.

This means that what happens in preparation for PI Planning can be just as important as the event itself.

What is a pre-PI Planning event and when is it needed?

A pre-planning event - separate to PI Planning - is to make sure that the ART is aligned within the broader Solution Train before they do PI Planning. It’s all about synchronizing with the other ARTs to ensure the solution and organization are heading in the right direction, together.

You’ll need to organize a pre-PI Planning event if you’re operating at the Large Solution, Portfolio, or Full SAFe levels. Essential SAFe is more basic and does not have a Solution Train, so if you’re operating at this level, you won’t need pre-PI Planning so formally.

Here are a few of the roles that should be invited to the pre-planning event:

• Solution Train Engineer
• Solution Management
• Solution Architect/Engineering
• Solution System Team
• Release Train Engineers
• Product Management
• System Architects/Engineers
• Customers

They’ll look at the top capabilities from the Solution Backlog, Solution Intent, Vision, and Solution Roadmap. It’s really a lot like PI Planning but at a higher level, across the overall solution and not just the individual ART.

The event starts with each ART summing up their previous program increment and accomplishments to set the context. Next, a senior executive will brief the attendees on the current situation before Solution Management discusses the current solution vision and any changes from what was shared previously. Other things that are often discussed or finalized include:

• Roadmaps
• Milestones
• Solution backlogs
• Upcoming PI features from the Program Backlog

In the next section, we'll help to define a few key terms that have been touched on.

PI Planning in SAFe

If you’re adopting SAFe for the first time, chances are it will start with PI Planning. That’s because it forms the foundation of the Scaled Agile Framework.

As Scaled Agile says, "if you are not doing it, you are not doing SAFe."

Definition:

SAFe or the Scaled Agile Framework™ is a series of guidelines and practices designed to help bring agility into larger organizations, across all teams and levels of the business. The framework is geared at improving visibility, alignment, and collaboration and should lead to greater productivity, better results, and faster delivery.

Whether you’re adopting all 5 levels or just essential SAFe, the foundation of your transformation and the driver for everything is the PI Planning ceremony.

Scrum and Kanban are also agile frameworks (that you may be more familiar with), and these have historically been very effective at the individual team level. SAFe helps to scale agility across teams; to have multiple teams come together to work on the same products, objectives, and outcomes. It goes beyond the team level to include every stakeholder, outlining what should happen at each level of the organization to ensure that scaled planning is successful.

The purpose of SAFe is to improve the visibility of work and alignment across teams, which will lead to more predictable business results.

This is increasingly important for organizations as they respond to changing circumstances and customer expectations. The traditional waterfall approaches fall short because they’re slow and inefficient.

Bigger companies (often with thousands of developers) can’t keep up with the innovation of smaller, more nimble startups. Along with bigger teams, larger organizations often have stricter requirements around governance and compliance, making it more complex to launch a new feature and deliver new value to customers.

These companies are looking for new ways to organize people into projects and introduce more effective ways of working that use resources more effectively and provide more predictable delivery. If they don’t, they may not survive.

SAFe is a way for these companies to start moving in a more agile direction.

PI Planning is a vital element of SAFe. It’s a ceremony that brings together representatives from every team to help them work together, decide on top features to work on next, identify dependencies, and make a plan for the next Program Increment. As a result, there’s greater visibility across all the teams, changes are made more frequently, and teams work with each other - not against each other. From there, these massive companies can speed up their processes, work more efficiently, compete with newer and more nimble companies, and stay viable.

SAFe and PI Planning are powerful enablers for organizational agility.

While SAFe is a framework designed for larger organizations, there isn't a reason stopping smaller companies from doing a version of PI Planning, too. All you need is more than one agile team to make it worthwhile.

PI Planning in Scrum

You can also use PI Planning as part of a simple Scrum approach.

Scrum Framework diagram shows when and how scrum teams can implement PI Planning

Source: Scrum.org

Scrum is an agile framework that helps teams get things done. It’s a way for teams to plan and organize their own work and tackle user stories and tasks in smaller time boxes. This is often referred to as a sprint.

If multiple scrum teams want to work better together (but aren’t necessarily operating within SAFe), they could adopt a version of PI Planning.

For example, these scrum teams could:

• Meet every 10 weeks and discuss the features they are planning to work on
• Get product managers to combine backlogs and prioritize together
• Share resources across the teams, as needed
• Map dependencies and coordinate joint releases

The good news here is that there’s no “one size fits all” approach to PI Planning, so think about how you could adopt the ideas and principles and make it work for your organization and context.

What is the difference between a PI Roadmap and a Solution Roadmap?

There are different types of roadmaps in SAFe, so it’s important to understand the differences and what each roadmap is meant to do.

PI Roadmap

A PI Roadmap is created before your PI Planning event and also reviewed and updated by Product Management after the event is finished. It will usually cover three Program Increments:

1. The current increment (work that’s committed)
2. The next forecasted increment (planned work based on forecasted objectives)
3. The increment after that (further planned work based on forecasted objectives)

Quarterly PI Planning will outline around 9 months of work. The second and third increments on your PI Roadmap will likely change as priorities shift, but they’re still an important part of the roadmap as they forecast where the product is headed next.

Solution Roadmap

The Solution Roadmap is a longer-term forecasting and planning tool for a specific product or service.

It will usually cover a few years at a time, with more specific details available for year one (like quarterly features and capabilities), and more general information (like objectives) for year two and beyond.

What is a program?

A program is where agile teams are grouped together to form a larger group. This is often referred to as the “team-of-teams” level. In simple terms, a program is a group of agile teams.

When you hear people talking about “team-of-teams” or “scaled agile”, they mean taking agile beyond a single team, and asking more teams to join in.

For example, there might be 4 teams working on a NASA spaceship mission to Mars.

NASA decides they want to see if agile can help these teams do better work. So, to start with, the Oxygen team switches from working with traditional Waterfall project management methods to embracing agile principles.

1. Launch team
2. Food team
3. Oxygen team (Agile)
4. Landing team

After a few months, NASA decides that the way the oxygen team is working is going well, so the remaining three teams similarly adopt more agile methodologies:

1. Launch team (Agile)
2. Food team (Agile)
3. Oxygen team (Agile)
4. Landing team (Agile)

Each of these 4 teams are self-organizing, meaning they’re responsible for their own work.

However, now that these teams are all working in the same way, they can be grouped together as a program.

Once you add in the business owners, product management team, systems architect/engineer, and release train engineer, you have all the roles needed to continuously deliver systems or solutions through the Agile Release Train (ART).

What is a program board?

Program Boards are a key output of PI Planning.

Traditionally, they’re a physical board that’s mounted on the wall, with columns drawn up to mark the iterations for the increment, and a row for each team. Teams add sticky notes that describe features they’ll be working on.

• Feature 1
• Feature 2
• Feature 3

Once all the features are added, they work to identify dependencies (features that’ll affect other features) and mark this up by connecting them with red string.

SAFe program boards don’t have to be physical, though. There are a lot of advantages to using a digital program board like Easy Agile Programs, which integrates directly with Jira. We’ll talk more about how you can use Jira for PI Planning towards the end of this guide.

Equip your remote, distributed or co-located teams for success with a digital tool for PI Planning.

Easy Agile Programs

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Who is involved in PI Planning?

There are 5 key roles in a PI Planning event:

1. Release Train Engineers
2. Product Managers
3. Product Owners
4. Scrum Masters
5. Developers

Here are the responsibilities for each of these roles during PI Planning:

Release Train Engineer

The Release Train Engineer is a servant leader and coach for the ART. Their role focuses mainly on planning and facilitating the PI Planning event. This means they help:

• Establish and communicate the annual calendars
• Get everything ready (including pre and post-PI Planning meetings)
• Manage risks and dependencies
• Create Program PI Objectives from Team PI Objectives and publish them
• Track progress towards expected goals
• Ensure strategy and execution alignment
• Facilitate System Demos

As the facilitator for the 2-day event, the Release Train Engineer presents the planning process and expected outcomes for the event, plus facilitates the Management Review and Problem Solving session and retrospective.

Product Manager

A Product Manager’s job is to understand the customers’ needs and validate solutions, while understanding and supporting portfolio work.

Before PI Planning happens, Product Managers take part in the pre-PI Planning meeting, where they discuss and define inputs, objectives, and milestones for their next PI Planning events.

In PI Planning, the Product Managers present the Program vision and upcoming milestones. So that they can manage and prioritize the flow of work, they review the Draft plan and describe any changes to the planning and scope based on the Management Review & Problem Solving session. Once the PI Planning event is over, they use the Program Objectives from the Release Train Engineer to update the roadmap.

Following PI Planning, Product Managers play a critical role in communicating findings and creating Solution PI Objectives.

Product Owner

The Product Owners are responsible for maintaining and prioritizing the Team Backlog, as well as Iteration Planning. They have content authority to make decisions at the User Story level during PI Planning Team Breakout sessions.

Product Owners help the Team with defining stories, estimating, and sequencing, as well as drafting the Team’s PI Objectives and participating in the Team Confidence Vote. They’re also responsible for conveying visions and goals from upper management to the team, as well as:

• Reporting on key performance metrics
• Evaluating progress, and
• Communicating the status to stakeholders

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is a servant leader to the Product Owner and Development team, which means they manage and lead processes while helping the team in practical ways to get things done.

They facilitate preparation for events (including PI Planning) and prepare System Demos. They help the team estimate their capacity for Iterations, finalize Team PI Objectives, and manage the timebox, dependencies, and ambiguities during Team Breakout sessions. The Scrum Master also participates in the Confidence Vote to help the team reach a consensus.

Developer

Developers are responsible for researching, designing, implementing, testing, maintaining, and managing software systems.

During PI Planning, they participate in Breakout sessions to create and refine user stories and acceptance criteria (alongside their Product Owner) and adjust the working plan. Developers help to identify risks and dependencies and to support the team in drafting and finalizing Team PI Objectives, before participating in the Team Confidence Vote.

Do you have a key role in PI Planning? See how the right tool can help you manage your release train or program better.

Watch an Easy Agile Programs product demo

How to prepare for PI Planning

If you want to succeed at PI Planning, you need to prepare.

Every PI Planning event relies on good preparation so that your organization and attendees get the most out of the event and achieve your planning objectives.

The first step is to ensure that everyone involved properly understands the planning process. All people participating in PI Planning (along with key stakeholders and Business Owners) must be clear on their role and aligned on strategy.

Any presenters will also need to get content ready for their presentations.

To ensure that the PI Planning event runs smoothly, make sure that the tools you need to facilitate planning are available and working properly. Be sure to test any tech that you are relying on ahead of time (including audio, video, internet connectivity, and access to PI Planning applications), to ensure that your distributed teams can participate in the PI Planning event. Don’t forget to plan for enough food for everyone, too (planning is hungry work).

What happens after PI Planning?

After PI Planning, teams do a planning retrospective to discuss:

• What went well
• What went not-so-well
• What could be better for next time
• There will also be a discussion of what happens next, which can include things like:
• Transcribing the objectives, user stories, and program board into your work management tool (like Jira)
• Agreeing on meeting times and locations for daily stand-ups and iteration planning
• Making sure that everyone has their belongings and leaves the event rooms clean when they go

The other thing that usually happens after PI Planning events is a post-PI Planning event.

What is a post-PI Planning event?

These are similar to the pre-PI Planning events we looked at earlier. A post-PI Planning event brings together stakeholders from all ARTs within the Solution Train to ensure they’re synchronized and aligned.

Post-PI Planning happens after all the ARTs have completed their PI Planning for the next increment. They present the plans, explain their objectives, and share milestones and expected timelines.

Like PI Planning events, post-PI Planning involves using a planning board, but rather than features, it outlines capabilities, dependencies, and milestones for each iteration and ART. Potential issues and risks are identified, discussed, and either owned, resolved, accepted, or mitigated. And similar to regular PI Planning events, plans go through a confidence vote to ensure they meet the solution’s objectives, and are reworked until the attendees average a vote of 3 or more.

Remote or hybrid PI Planning

PI Planning in person was once standard, but with teams more likely to be distributed, gathering everyone at the office isn't always feasible. This doesn't have to be a barrier.

The most important principle is to ensure that the teams who are doing the work are able to be 'present' in the planning in real-time, if not in person.

This may require some adjustments to the agenda and timing of your planning, but with forethought and support from the right technology, your PI Planning will still be effective.

Tips for remote PI Planning

Remote PI Planning is ideal for organizations with distributed teams or flexible work arrangements. It’s also a lot cheaper and less disruptive than flying folks in to do PI Planning every few months. If you have the right tools and technology, you can run PI Planning and allow everyone to participate, whether they’re in the same room or on the other side of the world.

Here are a few tips for remote PI Planning:

Embrace the cloud

Use online shared planning tools to allow your team to access and interact with information as soon as possible - ideally in real-time. Ensuring that all participants have instant access to the information simplifies the process of identifying dependencies and maintaining a centralized point of reference for your planning. This helps prevent errors that arise from working with different versions and transferring data between sources.

Livestream the event

Live-streaming audio and video from the PI Planning event is a viable alternative to in-person planning. Actively encourage your remote team members to use their cameras and microphones during the event. While it may not fully replicate the experience of having them physically present, it does come remarkably close.

Record the PI Planning event

Ideally, everyone will participate in the PI Planning live. But if your teams are distributed across multiple time zones or some team members are ill, it’s a good idea to record the event. Having a recording to refer back to could also be useful for attendees who want a refresher on anything that has been discussed.

Be ready to adapt

Some teams will change the standard PI Planning agenda to fit multiple time zones, which could mean starting the event earlier or later for some, or even running it across 3 days instead of 2.

Set expectations

A common issue that can arise from having distributed teams tune in remotely is too much noise and interference. Before your first session kicks off, communicate about when it’s acceptable to talk and when teams need to use the mute button. That way, your teams will avoid getting distracted, while still ensuring everyone can participate.

For more tips, check out our blog on how to prepare for distributed PI Planning.

Whether distributed or in person, if your team gets PI Planning right, it makes everything in the upcoming increment so much easier.

📣 Hear how PNI media have embraced virtual PI planning

Common PI Planning mistakes

PI Planning doesn’t always run smoothly, especially the first time. And the framework itself may present a challenge to some organizations. Here are some common mistakes and challenges to keep in mind (and avoid):

Long, boring sessions

Avoid starting your PI Planning event with long sessions filled with dense content. Think of creative ways to make these sessions more engaging, or break them into shorter sessions. Consider different formats that help to involve and engage participants. And be sure to make room for team planning and collaboration.

Tech issues

Any event is vulnerable to technical mishaps, but if you’re streaming audio and video to a distributed team, this can really impact the flow of the event. It’s a good idea to carefully test all the equipment and connections ahead of time to minimize potential problems.

Confidence vote

Some PI Planning participants struggle with the confidence vote concept. People may feel pressure from the room to vote for a plan to go ahead, rather than speaking up about their concerns. Failing to address issues early only increases the risk of something going wrong during the increment.

Time constraints

When you have a large ART of 10 or more teams, there are a lot of draft plans to present and review, so less time is allocated to each team. Chances are that the feedback will be of poorer quality than a smaller ART with 8 teams.

Not committing to the process

PI Planning isn’t perfect and neither is SAFe. However, the process has been proven to work for many organizations, when the organization is committed. Start with the full framework as recommended; you can adapt the framework and your PI Planning event to suit your organization, but be sure to commit to the process that follows. Anything that is half-done will not deliver full results.

Sticking with the same old tools

If something is not working, fix it. For example, too many teams stick with traditional SAFe Program Boards even though they’re not always practical. If the post-it notes keep escaping, the data entered into Jira seems incorrect, or you have a distributed team who want a digital way to be part of your PI Planning event… it’s time to upgrade to a digital program board like Easy Agile Programs.

Using Jira for PI Planning

Jira is the most popular project management tool for agile teams, so chances are you're already using it at the team level.

When you need to scale team agility as part of an ART, it can be difficult to properly visualize the work of multiple teams in Jira. The only way you can do that in the native app is by creating a multi-project board, which is rather clunky.

Traditional PI Planning on a physical board using sticky notes and string may achieve planning objectives for co-located teams, but what happens next? After the session is over, the notes and string need to be recreated in Jira for the whole team so that work can be tracked throughout the increment. This is a cumbersome and time-consuming process that is open to error as sticky notes are transcribed incorrectly, or go missing.

The best way to use Jira for PI Planning is to use an app like Easy Agile Programs to help you run your PI Planning sessions. The integrated features mean you can:

• Set up a digital Program Board (no more string and sticky notes!)
• Do cross-team planning
• Visualize and manage cross-team dependencies, create milestones
• Identify scheduling conflicts to mitigate risks
• Get aligned on committed objectives for the Program Increment
• Visualize an Increment Feature Roadmap
• Conduct confidence voting
• Transform Jira from a team-level tool to something that’s useful for the whole ART

Join companies like Bell, Cisco, and Deutsche Bahn who use Jira to do PI Planning with Easy Agile Programs (from the Atlassian Marketplace).

Looking for a PI Planning tool for Jira?

We’ll continue to revisit this guide in the future. If you have any questions about PI Planning or you notice there’s an aspect we haven’t covered yet, send us an email 📫

Business agility alone is no longer enough to succeed in today’s rapidly changing digital age. To compete and thrive, companies need to deliver value at speed and remove anything that gets in the way of seamless workflow. SAFe® flow accelerators can be the key to unlocking this momentum – but how do you successfully apply them to consistently deliver value?

SAFe methodologist Rebecca Davis sat down with Easy Agile's Jasmin Iordanidis to reflect on the concept of flow and business agility. In this article, we share their tips on how to accelerate flow in your organization. You'll learn:

• Why you need a flow mindset for flow accelerators to be successful
• How improving flow improves customer outcomes
• How to work with flow accelerators

Why flow begins with having the right mindset

Under the SAFe® framework, flow is present when a company can quickly, continuously, and effectively deliver quality products and services that deliver value. This requires all individuals and teams in the value stream to be working optimally with minimum delays and rework, an approach that is significantly different to the traditional ways of work.

“Mindset is big when it comes to working in this way,” said Rebecca. “Rather than simply following policy or the way things have always been done, people need to have conversations and ask questions to find ways to improve. And that means everyone in the company, whether you’re at the team or solution or executive level, needs to really understand and live these principals”.

This makes cultivating a flow mindset of open communication and information sharing across all teams and levels essential. It helps pave the way for accelerated feedback loops that help identify blockers early, rectify issues fast, and facilitate continuous, seamless workflow.

How improving flow improves customer outcomes

SAFe® flow accelerators help work flow through the system without interruptions so your company can deliver continuous value in the shortest amount of time as possible. They do this by helping to remove interruptions, progress work quickly, and create a smooth workflow, which together improve productivity across the value stream. “Accelerators are tangible levers you can pull to improve flow,” said Jasmin. “You can apply metrics to each accelerator so you can quickly assess whether it’s working and adjust accordingly”.

This improved productivity generally leads to improved output from your people. “By removing blockers, you can give people in your business more time to do the work that makes them happier and that makes a difference,” said Jasmin. “They can do more deep work - in whatever form that looks like for them – and ultimately, this leads to improved customer outcomes”.

What are the eight SAFe® flow accelerators?

The SAFe® framework includes eight flow accelerators, with each designed to address a specific activity that interrupts value flow.

1. Visualise and limit WIP: Too much WIP confuses priorities, overloads people, and reduces productivity. Continually adjust WIP to better match demand to capacity and help increase flow through the system.
2. Address bottlenecks: Bottle necks cause the value stream to operate well below capacity. Focus on eliminating dominant bottlenecks by adding additional skills, people, or other resources.
3. Minimise handoffs and dependencies: Excessive handoffs and dependencies can cause rework and delays. Create teams and ARTs with all the knowledge, resources, skills, and decision-making authority to create an end-to-end flow of value.
4. Get faster feedback: Fast feedback helps speed up learning and improvement. Build mechanisms and processes to collect, analyze, and evaluate data early in the development process.
5. Work in smaller batches: The smaller the batch size, the faster teams can collect and evaluate feedback and adjust. Optimize size by balancing the trade-offs between holding cost and transaction cost.
6. Reduce queue length: Long queues lead to waste, delays, and information decay. Start tracking queue length and keep backlogs short to create flexibility to work on new high priority tasks.
7. Optimise ‘time in the zone’: People and teams in the zone demonstrate higher creativity, productivity, happiness, and fulfillment. Focus on creating an environment where workers have time and space free from interruptions.
8. Remediate legacy policies and practises: Legacy policies can become part of the culture and inhibit flow, even when they are no longer fit for purpose. Take steps to identity these policies then eliminate, modify, or mitigate.

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Learn when to connect the Scaled Agile Framework with your agile transformation, the importance of having a common language for organizations to scale effectively + more!

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‍4 steps to winning with  SAFe® flow accelerators

1. Build a hypothesis

The first step is to build your hypothesis. Clarify what you believe will change and think about when you might first see if flow is moving in a different way to how it was before.

TIP: Start conversations and gather insights from the teams that will be directly impacted by these changes.

2. Choose high-impact accelerators

When choosing which accelerators to focus on, you’ll need to start with reading, digesting, and understanding them all. You can then take these learnings and start conversations with people on the ground to get an idea of where improvements can be made. “There are no sequential steps to follow when it comes to the accelerators,” said Rebecca. “Once you’ve found areas of improvement, you can self-select which accelerators you think will have the most impact and start working with those”.

TIP: Remember if you can’t see it, you can’t accelerate it. So, if you don’t know where to start making improvements, look out for any friction points or gaps in the value stream.

3. Decide when to check progress

“There’s no one-size-fits all answer as to when to check whether an accelerator is improving flow,” said Rebecca. “How long you need to wait depends on the action and the insights you gathered when building your hypothesis”. This means that for some actions, you can check whether flow has improved the next day while others may take a few weeks to see results.

TIP: Identify the earliest moment you can look back and see that something has changed and note this as your time to check in.

4. Use flow metrics correctly

It’s important to remember that flow metrics are not to be used as punitive measures but instead as a marker to measure whether an accelerator has improved flow. For many people, this requires a mindset shift away from thinking that if something goes wrong or if it fails, it didn’t work. And that means that sometimes, there may be a risk that the metrics may be used in a negative way.

“It helps to understand that sometimes people fall back on old behaviours when things get hard – and that includes people in leadership positions,” said Rebecca. “So be honest and courageous if you see metrics used in a negative way. This can help the team get back to the reasons why the metrics are being used in the first place”.

TIP: Build and maintain trust by clarifying how each metric helps improve outcomes and deliver value. If there is no clear link, then consider dropping it.

Accelerating flow helps teams focus on delivering value

Creating time and space for teams to focus on producing value can help your organization respond more quickly to changing customer needs and business conditions. SAFe® flow accelerators can help remove unnecessary work and blockers to create an environment of continuous improvement, optimization, and consistent value creation.

To improve flow across your organization, learn how Easy Agile Programs empowers your organization to visualize where you may have conflicts or risks to work not progressing and to easily unblock these so teams can maintain momentum and continue to deliver value.

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I was fortunate enough to travel to San Diego for the recent Global SAFe Summit. It was there that the folks from Scaled Agile Inc. unveiled SAFe 5.0 to the audience of 2,100 people from all around the world.

Like many in attendance, I was both excited and overwhelmed with all the changes including the refreshed Big Picture, renewed focus on customers and concepts of Business Agility just to name a few.

After the long flight back to Australia, and having had time to share my learnings with the team, we're super excited about what these changes mean for scaling organizational agility and we wanted to share a few of them here with you.

What's new in SAFe 5.0

1. Introduction of Business Agility

How is this different? Business agility now incorporates the whole business in the move towards value streams rather than individual departments.

2. Refreshed look and feel to the SAFe Big Picture

3. New SAFe Overview

4. SAFe 5.0 'revamps' 2 of the Core Competencies of the Lean Enterprise:

• Agile Product Delivery from DevOps and Release on Demand
• Enterprise Solution Delivery from Business Solutions and Lean Systems Engineering

Plus, Addition of 2 new Core Competencies:

• Organisational Agility
• Continuous Learning Culture

5. A 10th SAFe Principle was announced

NEW: Principle #10 - Organise Around Value

Why are we excited about SAFe 5.0?

It's not the updated Big Picture diagram, or the more approachable and "business friendly" overview that has us excited about SAFe 5.0. What we're more excited about than anything, is the renewed focus on customers - hooray!

While we enjoyed playing a customer version of 'Where's Wally?' in previous SAFe Big Pictures, this renewed focus on customers represents a shift in the level of maturity of organizations adopting SAFe.

They are no longer at a point where "doing" agile is their primary objective. This shift towards customer-centricity embodies what it truly means to be agile, where satisfying the customer is our primary objective.

We've also seen this shift more broadly, as customer/user satisfaction was cited as the #1 success metric for both agile initiatives and individual agile projects in this year's #StateOfAgile report.

How does SAFe 5.0 encourage customer centricity?

The revamped Core Competency of Agile Product Delivery (previously called DevOps and Release on Demand) is what really has us using emojis like ❤️ and has us feeling jazzed.

The DevOps and Release on Demand competency was all about "delivering value to customers" by forming value streams and optimizing continuous delivery pipelines to ship stuff into the hands of customers quickly.

The idea that value to customers = shipping working software more regularly is 💩.

A bad feature is still a bad feature no matter how much faster it lands in the laps of customers. Worse still, a bad feature that your customers don't use, didn't want, or doesn't make them better at their job...... I think you know where I'm going with this.

This revamped Agile Product Delivery competency instead places the focus waaaaaayyyy before anything is actually built - the first order of business should be having a customer-centric mindset by:

• focusing on the customer
• understanding their needs
• thinking and feeling like the customer #bethecustomer
• building a whole product solution
• knowing the customer lifetime value

How do we achieve customer-centricity?

Putting customers at the center of all decisions and incorporating Design Thinking practices into the mix well before we even think about building anything is key to achieving customer-centricity.

This all sounds great, but what does this look like in practice? The diagram below is probably our favourite asset in the entire SAFe catalogue and we think it showcases practical examples of Design Thinking in practice:

Our personal favourites

Personas 💁🏽‍♀️

It might seem trivial at first, to come together as a team, creating what seem like fake dating profiles for your customers.

However, this exercise sets the foundation for other agile practices down the track, and its perceived benefits are often undervalued.

Teams that have a shared understanding and alignment around the types of people using the solution they are delivering are more likely to succeed.

We want to make sure we're building the right solutions, for the right people, to help solve the right problems at the right time, otherwise we risk the following scenario:

Knowing the customer deeply is no longer the sole responsibility of a (traditional) Sales and Marketing team. Agile practices have called for the development of cross-functional team members to step up and help connect with customers.

Related blog post: how to create personas with your team.

It's no secret as the makers of Easy Agile TeamRhythm that we love user story maps (shameless 🔌).

So what about this agile practice do we love so much that we decided to form a business off the back of it?

The purpose of engaging in this activity is to create a shared understanding of who our customers are, how they interact with our products and how we should focus our development efforts on stories in order to provide our customers with the most value.

In other words, it gives us a way to say, ok I'm working on building this user story, I know who the user I'm building this story for is, and I can understand which part of the customer's journey this will be directly impacting.

We believe this shared understanding is incredibly powerful for both building with empathy and putting our customers at the heart of of all our development decisions. We believe this practice exemplifies what it means to be customer centric, and that's why we ❤️ it.

Verdict

Easy Agile welcomes the big changes introduced in SAFe 5.0, especially calling out customer-centricity, design thinking, and business agility. We can't wait to see how our customers start introducing this to their teams.

Software development is incredibly dynamic and results-driven, with rapid innovation and technology changing all the time. So if you want to keep with it all – just like you do with the Kardashians – you need a flexible way of working that suits your organisation. If you’re struggling to work out how to coordinate multiple agile teams and scale agile transformations, Scaled Agile (SAFe) might be for you.

But what exactly do we mean by SAFe, and how can it help your enterprise work better together and more effectively serve your customers?

Read on as we discuss the differences between SAFe and agile and how you can use SAFe within larger companies. Below, we’ll cover why agile is still best for small teams and why enterprises should consider scaling up.

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What is SAFe?

Scaled agile framework, or SAFe, makes it easier for large enterprises to implement lean agile practices to improve their product and meet stakeholder requirements.

SAFe is a body of knowledge that has structured guidance on roles and responsibilities, work planning and work management, and core values.

SAFe is a combination of different agile practices, but it introduces one unique aspect: lean thinking.

Lean thinking should ensure no resources go to waste during the software development process. Trust us, your thrifty side will thank you. #ZeroWaste 💃🏼

SAFe also encourages people to apply systems thinking to three crucial areas: solutions to pain points, workflow management, and revenue streams.

Here, solutions refer to products, services, or systems that are delivered to the customer. Large solutions have several interconnected parts, so managers need a broader approach to see how they fit into the bigger picture.

People who follow the SAFe framework should think about the involved stakeholders and processes. If any organization wants to optimize how their teams work, they need to become cross-functional, remove silos, and make new working arrangements with suppliers and clients.

This can be a big change for many large companies with poor cross-functional collaboration.

The enterprise also has to define how value flows from concept to cash in the solution department value streams, which is a series of steps used to create value in SAFe. Plus, it's management’s job to maximize value flow across organizational as well as functional boundaries.

People often confuse agile to be the same as SAFe, but they have some key differences.

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SAFe vs. agile: How do they differ?

Agile is a repetitive product development method that helps ensure the continuous delivery of tasks assigned. In other words, it's like Monica from Friends. She’s reliable and good at what she does.

In agile, cross-functional development teams work off a single backlog and break work into sprints, which means breaking down tasks into time-defined, smaller groups. This makes every person aware of what is expected of them, which, in turn, promotes productivity and increases the likelihood of better results.

That said, agile is mainly designed for smaller teams. Think 10 or fewer people. But if you’re an enterprise, don’t start sweating yet. In its simplest form SAFe is an agile framework for businesses that operate on an enterprise level. Enterprises are usually corporations that have hundreds, if not thousands, of employees and teams. So the number of people engaged is definitely larger.

The benefits are different as well.

Agile provides project managers, leaders, sponsors, and customers with various benefits, including faster turnaround time, resource wastage reduction, improved strategic focus on customer needs, better team collaboration, and feedback.

The biggest advantage of SAFe is it’s suited for enterprise problems. It keeps the size of the teams in mind as it helps increase productivity, make efficient project framework planning, and quicker codification of agile practices.

Having said that, SAFe and agile aren’t exactly on different planets.

The essential SAFe and agile core values are similar – but they aren’t exact. SAFe principles prioritize the following four:

• Alignment
• Transparency
• Built-in quality
• Program execution

Whereas, the core values of agile include:

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Faster response to change over a plan
• Working software of work comprehensive documentation
• Individuals and interactions related to processes and tool

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So, SAFe inspires lean-agile decision-making across large product management projects, while agile development promotes self-organizing, autonomous teams..

Organisations operating on a larger scale should consider scaling agile – which is exactly what SAFe is. Keep reading as we discuss this in more detail.

Why enterprises should consider scaling up from agile

Before discussing SAFe further, you have to understand what happens to relationships and communication when teams get larger.

The larger the team, the greater the number of relationships. Every new person adds some individual perspective to the team, but they can also increase overhead communication.

Let’s explain things from a mathematical point of view.

Imagine a team that consists of seven members. The total number of one-on-one relationships within the team is 21. But when you increase to nine members, the relationships between every individual becomes 36. Yep, that's the difference it can make! *mind blown*

How does SAFe serve larger teams better?

You may already be familiar with Scrum and Kanban – both of which are agile frameworks and are most effective at the individual team level in sectors primarily born out of software development, including DevOps and portfolio management.

It also means that adopting these perspectives when multiple teams are involved won’t be useful. #Frustration 😔 Although large-scale scrum is a possibility, product owners and product managers often look for other solutions.

SAFe goes beyond the team level, which, in turn, results in better alignment across teams and workload visibility. You're also able to make better predictions related to dynamic market conditions and ever-changing customer expectations.

*enter PI Planning or program increment planning*

PI Planning within SAFe can ensure better collaboration and decision-making between teams. Team leaders can decide on features to work on next, identify dependencies, and develop a new plan for program increment in a much more effective and efficient manner.

So teams work with each other and not against. #Win 🥳

A full SAFe adoption can solve enterprise pain points and boost competencies

Keep reading as we discuss how SAFe solves large enterprise pain points in a way agile alone cannot.

Make processes configurable and scalable

Implementing SAFe for larger teams isn’t difficult – all you need to do is add a layer to the process map. And take your patience levels up a few notches. These changes can help the team visualize how the different teams can continue to work together harmoniously after any change.

In other words, business agility won't have to be compromised.

The Agile Release Train (ART)

An ART enables Scrum and Lean teams to experience the benefits of proper process alignment that the Program and Portfolio processes expand upon as the team starts to grow.

Clearly defined processes and roles

It’s normal for teams to face problems, but with SAFe, they'll get a better idea of how to solve them by improving their thought processes and utilizing specific tools.

What's more, the SAFe website has an in-depth explanation of concepts along with process maps that serve as visual aids to understand the said concepts and processes.

Scaled Agile improves team collaboration

SAFe helps large organizations carry out large-scale, mission intensive projects better. The combination of existing lean and agile principles can play a very positive role in facilitating better communication and control between multiple teams.

As a proud Scaled Agile Platform Partner, Easy Agile Programs enables Release Train Engineers and Program Managers to effectively manage programs at a ‘team-of-teams’ level to deliver alignment at scale.

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If you want to learn more about agile teams and frameworks, we have plenty of guidance that can help you ensure better results for your organization.

If you want to better understand the characteristics of SAFe agile teams, and what leads to the successes and failures. Register now for our upcoming webinar.

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Large organizations use SAFe Agile to improve their operations. When you use this framework, you scale Agile to create a Lean enterprise.

This approach helps meet the challenge of delivering constant value. It also helps to support continuous improvement.

Another benefit of using SAFe® is that you get to plan and apply a predictable workflow schedule. When leaders link strategy with implementation, they increase their performance and productivity.

SAFe stands for scaled agile framework enterprise. You can use this framework to apply agile methodologies, such as Scrum or Kanban, to larger teams. SAFe training and certification courses help leaders plan and implement the philosophy.

In this article, you’ll learn about the benefits SAFe can offer your enterprise and how effective organizers lead and implement SAFe. You’ll also hear about training courses that can help.

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Major benefits of implementing SAFe

SAFe values alignment, transparency, quality, and execution. It inspires enterprises to adopt lean-agile thinking across multiple departments or teams. Lean methodology means higher productivity, reduced costs, and improved work quality. By identifying value streams and streamlining work processes as you implement SAFe, you can start to create a Lean enterprise.

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By implementing SAFe, you gain the tools to support lean thinking. You create Scrum teams who understand what the user wants, how to deliver those changes with minimal time waste, and create efficient processes. SAFe will also clarify roles and processes so teams can quickly react to problems.

Many large companies have applied SAFe and report major benefits. One of these benefits is increasing employee satisfaction and productivity by as much as 50%. Then, there’s up to a 75% increase in product quality and time to market.

SAFe methodology teaches you to apply a systems approach to pain points, workflow management, and value streams. A healthy amount of cross-team collaboration can begin. The end goal is enhanced value flow.

The transition to using SAFe can take time and trial and error. Being brave enough to engage on a meaningful level and produce better quality outcomes is part of this new norm.

Beginning to use SAFe: The big picture

Using SAFe in your organization can be a major transition. You’ll need to consider how effective leadership and implementation will help make this transition.

1. Leading SAFe

Leading SAFe means building cross-functional teams and developing workflows that help your team get the most value out of planning. That way, software development teams can quickly respond to customer’s needs.

A solid SAFe leader improves productivity, product quality, and time-to-market.

Other identifiers of quality SAFe leadership include better team member engagement, which helps work better and feel part of a supported and supportive team. The value that individuals bring to the organization then increases.

Leading SAFe course

The Leading SAFe® training course is foundational. You’ll mainly learn about SAFe principles and their practices.With SAFe certification, you learn how to apply and scale the scaled agile framework for Lean and agile development. You’ll also learn how to plan and implement Program Increments (PI).

Once you have this information, you can guide transformation across your organization.

2. Implementing SAFe

To properly implement SAFe, you need to know how to coach agile teams through the SAFe framework and Lean-Agile mindset.

Before you can do this, you need to know how to identify and maximize value streams in work processes. In doing so, you’ll increase team collaboration. By increasing collaboration, you’re better positioned to produce value for product owners.

As you implement SAFe, you’ll constantly develop solutions to organizational problems and understand each person’s role in this framework.

Essentially, you start and sustain long-term change that increases value and profits. You then coach others on how to capture the value and apply SAFe principles in practice to achieve long-lasting change.

Implementing SAFe course

Implementing SAFe® is another foundational course. This training course offers an in-depth look at the SAFe Agile framework. It also teaches you how to apply your learning.

In this course, you’ll learn how to design a SAFe implementation plan, plan for enterprise transformation, introduce and launch Agile Release Trains (ARTs), and encourage the organization to be a lean enterprise. You’ll become a large-scale agile coach who teaches others to see and apply large solutions.

Implementing SAFe is ideal for anyone who wants to know how to lead transformation. It focuses on leading SAFe with remote teams. You get to find out how to create Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and show others how to design ARTs.

More SAFe roles and processes

As you learn how to incorporate SAFe, you’ll need to focus on empowering key team members and focusing on some crucial areas. SAFe training is available for some of these roles and processes.

• The SAFe Advanced Scrum Master coaches Scrum teams as they adopt the agile mindset.
• Lean Portfolio Management helps with cross-team collaboration as you adapt to customer needs.
• The SAFe Release Train Engineer is key for Agile Release Trains. This person works on PI Planning, among other events. This, along with the product manager, is a core position for leading SAFe to get the most out of value streams
• A Certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) leads change across the enterprise at all levels by coaching and training team members as they adopt the lean-agile mindset. The SPC also organizes and mentors employees to encourage ongoing engagement.
• You’ll need to empower teams to learn how to be a skilled member of an Agile Release Train.

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More Agilist certification courses include training as a release train engineer and a SAFe Scrum Master. You can also take these two-day to four-day certified SAFe training courses to improve your competencies.

For advice on which certified SAFe courses are best for you, go through these FAQs to boost ongoing improvements in your organization.

SAFe training for better enterprise agility

Adopt SAFe to create a Lean enterprise with large-scale change. It encourages cross-team collaboration, systems thinking, and a lean mindset.

While SAFe can take time to implement, there are resources to help, including SAFe training courses. Choose to focus on team members and processes that can most benefit from extra guidance.

You can also follow the Easy Agile blog, podcast, and learning hub for extensive guidance on agile principles, roles, and tools.

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Many organizations struggle to manage large-scale projects. SAFe can help.

SAFe gives you the framework and training that you need to make a sustainable change on a large scale. If you want to change on a small team level, department level, or across the enterprise, SAFe shows you how.

There are many benefits to implementing SAFe. But what exactly is it, and how can you use SAFe to help create a lean enterprise?

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SAFe background

SAFe is the acronym for “Scaled Agile Framework.” As agile focuses on small-scale continuous improvement, SAFe uses its philosophy at an enterprise level.

SAFe increases business agility, resulting in flexible and responsive teams for large organizations. SAFe uses its own set of values along with Lean-Agile principles.

This agile framework started when software systems expert Dean Leffingwell became frustrated with traditional work processes in the software industry. He developed the SAFe method to help change work processes that reaped results.

You can use this framework to instill a Lean-Agile mindset on a large scale. It focuses on constant improvements. As a result, enterprises improve work performance and productivity.

You can access training through Scaled Agile Inc. to scale work and improve performance in your enterprise.

Implementing SAFe at the team, program level, or enterprise is completely doable.

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SAFe values

The Scaled Agile Framework uses four core values:

1. Alignment of business decisions with the business vision, strategy, implementation and goals on a small to large scale.
2. Built-in quality to produce desirable outcomes that create success.
3. Transparency: Good decisions can only be made when comprehensive information is available.
4. Program execution that links back to strategy and vision

By applying these values, teams and organizations increase engagement by making it clear what they expect of agile team behaviors and actions.

When everyone works together and understands their responsibilities, the chance of success increases dramatically. SAFe encourages openness and engagement in meeting individual and team responsibilities. So, if an individual or team hits a roadblock, they communicate to find joint solutions to problems.

At scale, organizations use Lean-Agile methodology to:

• Drive the on-time delivery of software development products
• Support quality product deliverables
• Increase stakeholder engagement and satisfaction
• Streamline performance based on regular, predictable schedules

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What is agile?

SAFe applies the agile methodology to larger teams. So, let's cover what agile means.

Agile methodology focuses on flexibility, collaboration, and value delivery. It means constantly adapting, or iterating, a product based on changing user and stakeholder needs. Agile teams rapidly respond to change and quickly adapt, whether they use Scrum or Kanban.

Every iteration has a set timebox. Team members use these increments to support streamlined workflows. They create, test, and deliver outcomes that work better than traditional work processes.

What is Lean?

Lean methodology also plays a role in SAFe.

The Lean method has its roots in the auto industry. Ford motors, Toyota expanded on Ford's methodology to further minimize waste and deliver value. Now, Lean has a more comprehensive set of principles with practical applications.

Lean highlights the importance of reviewing value streams to improve efficiency and create more customer value.

When you use Lean principles, teams create more value, higher performance, and increased productivity. In other words, Lean supports business agility.

SAFe incorporates this Lean method of work. So, you can also apply SAFe to lean portfolio management (LPM) and many other areas of the organization.

SAFe Agile principles

The SAFe Agile framework also focuses on 10 SAFe principles. These principles help link performance, quality, and profits.

1. “Take an economic view.”
2. “Apply systems thinking.”
3. “Assume variability; preserve options.” This means no one solution is correct, so teams should keep an open mind when discussing work approaches.
4. “Build rapidly in increments to hasten learning cycles.”
5. “Create milestones on objective analysis of working systems.”
6. “Envision and restrict WIP, limit work batch sizes, and control queue lengths.” Any stoppages and problems lengthen the time to market, increase the use of scarce resources and reduce potential profits. In short, “time is money.”
7. “Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning.”
8. Encourage the innate motivation of knowledge within Scrum teams
9. Spread the decision-making process
10. Organize goals and work around the value that it creates

What is SAFe’s big picture?

If you’re having a tough time trying to visualize SAFe, let’s look at the big picture. Whereas the typical agile team is smale, SAFe offers a way to scale agile methodologies to larger organizations. It focuses on cross-team collaboration and motivates everyone to adopt a Lean mindset.

This means streamlined work processes and a clearer understanding of which processes create value. It also encourages larger teams to constantly adapt and improve.

The framework shows how strategic planning can transform into practical work execution. Agile teams use the Agile Release Train (ART) to collaborate at each level of work to make this happen. SAFe also offers training to become a Release Train Engineer to support change.

At each level, the framework also indicates the SAFe principles that teams must use. By using these principles, they achieve value creation via coordination and a flexible workflow.

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The benefits of implementing SAFe

Leaders and employees can see the SAFe roadmap and workflow. They can also see the large-scale impact on business agility.

Some of the benefits of implementing SAFe include:

• Improving systems thinking across the organization
• Improving value streams and quality outcomes
• Increasing productivity
• Developing team environments through lean thinking
• Decreasing time-to-market
• Creating specific methods to achieve goals
• Generating transparency that clarifies roles, responsibilities, and action
• Removing silos and aligning smaller teams with the greater whole of the organization
• Increasing business agility to meet overall organizational goals

SAFe Agile certification

You can take advantage of certified SAFe Agile training courses to upskill your agile teams. Scaled Agile Inc. offers various training courses to manage Agile transformation.

SAFe training courses can help you implement SAFe methodology, lead SAFe teams as a SAFe Scrum Master, and manage Lean portfolios in SAFe.

SAFe + Jira = Success

Combine SAFe and Jira, and you have a comprehensive framework for success. After starting with SAFe, enterprises report significant, quantifiable improvements in implementing strategies.

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Scrum teams create release plans to support successful product releases. This helps them maintain their focus on the product vision and feature deliverables.

Here, we’ll explore the definition and purpose of agile release planning and its essential template elements.

Find out what goes into creating a planning meeting and how to set your Scrum team up for successful product releases.

What is agile release planning?

Because software projects are unpredictable, release planning helps team members prioritize their workflow. A release plan focuses on getting specific product features ready for the market. It should examine the product scope, the release date for feature completion, and the resources needed for each release.

The development team then looks at the feedback from earlier product iterations to guide their planning. Product owners and Scrum teams get together to discuss the agile release plan. That’s because team members need to understand what level of product functionality must go into their work. They also need to understand work effort to plan their deadlines for each product increment.

Instead of planning for a significant product release, team members divide the project scope into short sprints or iterations. Many Scrum teams use Jira software to help them plan their sprints, as it helps everyone see the project status at any time.

Creating a prioritization list ensures that team members focus on the most vital product versions the Scrum product owner prioritizes.

What is the purpose of the release plan?

Project release planning helps software development teams plan, direct, and release each project in increments to serve the customer experience. Teams often use this methodology for short sprints of product development.

Release planning provides agile and Scrum teams with a solid direction to complete their projects. Team members also use this opportunity to use sprint feedback to create increments that align with the next release’s project roadmap.

Getting the product plan together

Release planning seems complex, but with some foresight, it can be simple. Let’s review each part of the process.

1. Who leads the release plan?

Typically, the product development team takes its lead from the Scrum master or the product owner. During the meeting, this leader will raise questions about the product backlog to ensure that sprint discussions align with the final product.

All the product stakeholders should participate in the release plan to ensure their feedback is taken into consideration. Without input from everyone involved in the product development, the team risks missing out on vital information to keep the product roadmap on track.

2. Agile release plan aspects

While the release plan is meant to be agile, it also follows a strict process to ensure that teams keep the product roadmap in sight.

Agile teams take all the sprint planning discussions and evaluate these to detail new product deliverables. Although most organizations will use various approaches in their release planning process, each sprint review should include the following aspects:

• The agreed product development releases at each stage of the sprint
• A direction for each new product release
• Specific current and future iterations due in each upcoming release
• What features and functionality should accompany the iteration
• Specific task requirements for each feature delivery to meet the release goal

By going through an in-depth release planning process, software development teams harness the value of these sprint meetings. The ability to rapidly change direction as necessary ensures the team releases the best possible product.

This constant iteration in each sprint review is also valuable in the dynamic environment of product development.

This level of planning, combined with an iterative schedule to account for the dynamic nature of software, is what makes Agile product development so valuable.

3. Sprint meeting discussions

Sprint meeting discussions revolve around user stories, product backlog, and product backlog items. Scrum release planning also considers other issues such as dependencies and product functionality. Other aspects that the team speaks about involve the next release and the number of sprints they must complete and deliver.

Essentially, team members must keep the product vision in mind for effective release planning. This vision helps team members isolate minimum market sprint feature batches and their release dates.

Sprint meeting discussions should include:

• Release plan prioritization of impending new product features and functionality
• Evaluation and inclusion of stakeholder feedback for each sprint
• Detailed descriptions of sprint deliverables and whether these fall into the category of product short-term increments or major longer-term releases
• Which product version will be ready for release and the ideal sequence of product releases to achieve each release goal

Development teams build several product versions. After creating these versions, they prioritize them to release the most important ones to users.

Part of the purpose of release planning is to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same product development page. Another element of these sprint planning meetings is to drive ownership and acceptance of the product vision.

Development of the release plan

There are four steps that software development teams follow to create their product plan.

1. Creating the vision

First, you need to define the vision for the product. Creating a clear vision produces a roadmap for the team to follow in each consecutive sprint. This vision should align with market demand and the product owner’s goals.

It also encourages team members to sift through which features they should prioritize. Similarly, the product roadmap helps teams evaluate the resources they need during the sprint review. Product planning also enables teams to be flexible. Planning reviews ensure direction changes to accommodate ongoing increments to achieve overall release goals.

2. Prioritization of the product backlog

After defining the vision, team members focus on prioritizing features in the product backlog. Here, stakeholder inputs must align with the vision to successfully implement user stories. User stories are vital to the process as they provide the background for detailing product features or functionality.

The product manager provides the team with direction at this stage to outline a viable release plan. This release plan must include the product release goals, release dates, and prioritization of user stories.

3. Set the Scrum planning meeting

The next step in the planning meeting is for the stakeholders to review the plan. Team members now have the chance to adjust deliverables in line with the vision.

Everyone must agree to the release plan at this stage before they can move forward to the next release.

Meeting agenda

Setting up a meeting agenda helps manage the release plan. The essential elements of the agenda for the Scrum framework include:

1. Product plan assessment

The Scrum team reviews the product roadmap to ensure that everyone accepts the product vision and goals.

2. Architecture evaluation

With each release, the Scrum team and product owner evaluate the previous sprint’s architecture. They examine the technical details of the product development and discuss any potential problems that can impact the product release.

Scrum teams go over the scope and estimates of their release plan. Team members determine whether their planning includes the risk of technical debt and if they can complete certain task aspects, such as documenting their work to meet deadlines. Stakeholders also review dependencies that can influence the product versions’ functionality.

3. Velocity and iteration assessment

Scrum teams go over previous iterations to review their velocity estimates. They align their estimates with the suggested iteration schedule to ensure they cover all vital elements.

The product manager controls this assessment to ensure points are assigned to user stories. Assessing user stories and assigning points demonstrate the level of effort the team must invest in each iteration. The total number of story points then represents the estimation of release dates for each sprint release.

An iteration schedule is built by the agile team to determine their velocity for the current and subsequent sprints during this assessment.

The team creates the release scope, which includes all the necessary releases. The Scrum master assigns work to each team member, and all the stakeholders agree to the plan before moving to the next step.

4. Agreement on the definition of done

The team members must now discuss what will qualify as the definition of done for each feature release. Team members must consider whether their evaluation of user stories meets all the product owner's acceptance criteria for release. Once they can prove the acceptance criteria are met in their assessment, they will know that a release completion is valid.

The definition of done must confirm that team members have completed all their assigned tasks for the user story. Team members must also record each task so that the product owner can assess their work.

5. Populate the product release schedule

The project manager can now populate and complete the release plan schedule. All stakeholders should be able to access the calendar to track progress. This release plan schedule helps everyone stay focused on product deliverables and release dates.

Get help with your release planning

Agile release planning is a vital part of the software development team’s success. Create a comprehensive agile release plan for minor or major releases, and you make your life simpler for an upcoming release.

Focus on the release plan calendar helps keep product owners and team members aware of the overall product vision.

Most Scrum teams can use a little help in creating their release plans. At Easy Agile, we offer Jira software that helps Scrum teams execute their release plans to perfection.

Easy Agile TeamRhythm supports collaborative release planning in Jira. The highly-visual story map format transforms the flat Jira backlog into a meaningful picture of work, making it easier to manage your backlog and plan your release.