PI Planning Template

About the PI Planning Template

Many product teams and agile facilitators use PI Planning to align and bring teams towards one shared vision. PI Planning is supposed to happen in person, but since the rise of hybrid work, many teams run it remotely. Miro’s PI Planning Template helps you get an excellent overview of your PI Planning event, with step-by-step frames that will guide you through the whole process. 

Keep reading to know more about how to use the PI Planning Template.

What is PI planning?

PI planning or “program increment planning” is a method for strategizing toward a shared vision among teams. In a PI planning event, teams, stakeholders, and project owners are assembled to review a program backlog and determine what direction the business will take next. Typically, organizations carry out PI planning every 8 to 12 weeks.

Benefits of PI planning

PI planning can be useful in a number of ways, and teams in various industries apply the PI methods to boost efficiency and productivity.

Establish face-to-face communication

One advantage of PI planning is that it enables all the various stakeholders and teams on a project to meet face-to-face and talk about the overall mission and goals. This is the crucial first step towards aligning all the different parties towards the same mission and goals. 

Boost productivity

PI planning fosters cross-team and cross-Agile Release Team (ART) collaboration and establishes a clear backlog and schedule for when tasks should be completed. With teams syncing and communicating in the right way and focused on their own goals, overall team productivity improves.

Align team goals

One of the main goals of the PI planning process is to set clear goals and ensure that all stakeholders and team members are working towards that goal. Making sure that everyone understands and shares the same goal is the foundation of a unified team effort.

When to use PI planning

PI planning is part of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which is designed to help developers overcome the challenge of coordinating across teams, processes, and programs. In the SAFe model, teams are assembled into Agile Release Trains (ARTs), each of which works on a specific part of a broader goal.

To engage in PI planning, the Agile Release trains are brought together every 8 to 12 weeks. A PI planning event is an opportunity to step back and ensure everyone is still working toward the same business goals and is satisfied with the overall vision. 

Create your PI Planning board

You can easily organize a PI Planning event remotely or in-person with Miro.  Our PI Planning Template is divided into four parts: 

1. Agenda 

2. Program Board

3. ROAM Board 

4. Teams Board 

Read below to see how to use each part of the PI Planning Template: 

PI Planning Agenda

Have a dedicated space to share the PI Planning schedule, where every participant will know what to expect and when. This will include all the PI Planning stages.  Add a Program Backlog so you and your team know what still needs to be worked on. 

Program Board (SAFe)

Here is where you and your team add milestones and iterations and how they correlate. Color-code tasks and connect them with lines and arrows to indicate flows and interdependencies. On the Program Board, you will overview features, dependencies, and milestones. 

ROAM Board

A ROAM Board is where you and your team can see the program’s risks. That’s the moment to identify obstacles to achieving goals and decide how to proceed. Use the voting feature to perform the confidence vote.  

Teams Board 

Each team will have precise future iterations, tasks, and objectives moving forward. What’s on this frame needs to be included in the roadmap.  

General considerations when running a PI Planning session:   

Bring everyone together

Make sure all stakeholders, teammates, and project owners are present for the first all-hands planning session. For remote PI planning, you might choose to use video conferencing tools, which are widely used now.

Clarify team goals

Now, the team comes together to articulate the vision for the product or solution. Answer these questions: How are you filling customer needs?  How have market changes impacted your ability to do so?

Draft a plan

Bring all these components together in a project management document for management and teams to review.

Tip: you can easily add Jira cards to your PI planning board to organize Jira issues and mark dependencies.