Align your product development team strategically
Use this template to create a visual summary of the goals, features, risks, dependencies, and timelines defined in the program increment plan.
Program increment planning — or PI planning — is an iterative exercise part of the SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) that allows all Agile Release Train (ART) collaborators to align on goals, workflows, and releases included in the next PI.
The PI planning template helps teams:
- Achieve a higher level of agile team alignment to the larger business context
- Collaboratively create a clear roadmap and prioritize work items
- Increase transparency and build trust between teams and stakeholders
- Create a forum to come together and work towards common goals
How to use the program increment planning template
Before the teams come together for the PI planning iteration, be sure to have a few things prepared:
- Create a program board: from this template and create a dedicated room in Mural to hold all the resources from the upcoming sessions.
- Create one team board per team: In the dedicated room, add one team board per team that will participate in the PI planning process.
- Edit the template: Delete any elements from the template that don’t suit your team’s needs and adapt the remaining elemnts to a format that best suits your team. This template should serve as a jumping-off point.
- Lock content to the background: Before sharing your mural, right click to lock all content to the background to avoid elements being moved during the session.
1. Define the PI objectives
Define the objectives of the program increment by creating a high-level summary of the business and technical goals that an agile team or train intends to achieve in the upcoming session.
Be sure to list out objectives, not features. Draft objectives by thinking about the problems that are being solved for the user (better, faster, cheaper). Think of features as being the solutions to those problems.
2. Fill out the program board
The program board highlights the new feature delivery updates, feature dependencies between teams, and milestones.
Once teams have completed their planning in the team boards, the whole group comes together to conclude their dependencies and delivery dates in the program board.
PI Planning Program Board
Create a visual summary of the goals, features, risks, dependencies, and timelines defined in the program increment plan.
PI Planning Team Board
Estimate the capacity of each team to accomplish the tasks in each iteration. You'll need one per team who participate in the planning.
3. Complete the ROAM board
Identify program risks and impediments that could impact your ability to meet your objectives. These need to be discussed and addressed with honesty and transparency, then categorized into one of the following categories: resolved, owned, accepted, and mitigated.
4. Hold a confidence vote
Rate your confidence in being able to deliver on your PI plan by using the voting function in Mural. Each participant gets one vote to cast.
5. Export your PI planning board
After the session, clean up the board and record action items, following up from any unanswered questions that remain after the session.
Tips for a PI planning session
- Be sure to add any resources needed for the PI planning event to the Mural beforehand. This can be links, screenshots, PDFs, and more!
- For recommendations on how to make the PI planning sessions run smoothly, check out Mural’s guide to PI planning for hybrid and remote teams
- Once the session is over, transfer learnings and action items quickly and efficiently into jira
Get started with this template right now.
Use this template to create a visual summary of the goals, features, risks, dependencies, and timelines defined in the program increment plan.
Program increment planning — or PI planning — is an iterative exercise part of the SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) that allows all Agile Release Train (ART) collaborators to align on goals, workflows, and releases included in the next PI.
The PI planning template helps teams:
- Achieve a higher level of agile team alignment to the larger business context
- Collaboratively create a clear roadmap and prioritize work items
- Increase transparency and build trust between teams and stakeholders
- Create a forum to come together and work towards common goals
How to use the program increment planning template
Before the teams come together for the PI planning iteration, be sure to have a few things prepared:
- Create a program board: from this template and create a dedicated room in Mural to hold all the resources from the upcoming sessions.
- Create one team board per team: In the dedicated room, add one team board per team that will participate in the PI planning process.
- Edit the template: Delete any elements from the template that don’t suit your team’s needs and adapt the remaining elemnts to a format that best suits your team. This template should serve as a jumping-off point.
- Lock content to the background: Before sharing your mural, right click to lock all content to the background to avoid elements being moved during the session.
1. Define the PI objectives
Define the objectives of the program increment by creating a high-level summary of the business and technical goals that an agile team or train intends to achieve in the upcoming session.
Be sure to list out objectives, not features. Draft objectives by thinking about the problems that are being solved for the user (better, faster, cheaper). Think of features as being the solutions to those problems.
2. Fill out the program board
The program board highlights the new feature delivery updates, feature dependencies between teams, and milestones.
Once teams have completed their planning in the team boards, the whole group comes together to conclude their dependencies and delivery dates in the program board.
PI Planning Program Board
Create a visual summary of the goals, features, risks, dependencies, and timelines defined in the program increment plan.
PI Planning Team Board
Estimate the capacity of each team to accomplish the tasks in each iteration. You'll need one per team who participate in the planning.
3. Complete the ROAM board
Identify program risks and impediments that could impact your ability to meet your objectives. These need to be discussed and addressed with honesty and transparency, then categorized into one of the following categories: resolved, owned, accepted, and mitigated.
4. Hold a confidence vote
Rate your confidence in being able to deliver on your PI plan by using the voting function in Mural. Each participant gets one vote to cast.
5. Export your PI planning board
After the session, clean up the board and record action items, following up from any unanswered questions that remain after the session.
Tips for a PI planning session
- Be sure to add any resources needed for the PI planning event to the Mural beforehand. This can be links, screenshots, PDFs, and more!
- For recommendations on how to make the PI planning sessions run smoothly, check out Mural’s guide to PI planning for hybrid and remote teams
- Once the session is over, transfer learnings and action items quickly and efficiently into jira
Coordinate SAFe PI planning sessions and align team priorities with Mural
Real-time collaboration
Add more productivity and engagement to meetings and calls with features to guide collaboration.
Sticky notes & text
Add ideas, action items, and more as a sticky note or text box — then change the colors and cluster to identify patterns and new solutions.
Anonymous voting
Gain consensus and reach alignment quickly, either in real time or asynchronously.
Easy sharing
There’s no barriers to collaboration with unlimited workspace members on the Free plan.
Summon collaborators
Easily direct everyone’s attention to a specific part of the mural — no screen sharing required.
Video meeting integrations
Seamlessly add visual collaboration to meetings with Microsoft Teams, Webex, and Zoom integrations.
What is needed for PI planning?
Why is it important to have a program increment (PI) planning board?
How many days should you plan for a program increment session?
What are the three most important inputs for PI planning?
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