A Ready Reckoner for PI Planning 
                     A Ready Reckoner for PI Planning
“A timebox event within  Agile Release Train (ART) which 
delivers incremental value in the form of a working software” is 
how SAFe defines a Program Increment (PI), and an effective PI 
requires work to be planned meticulously, transparently, and 
proactively.
 
This article is an attempt to pen down a few hygiene elements 
to bear in mind while planning your PIs. Sort of a checklist that 
is drawn from our coaching experience and exposure to 
various pertinent best practices. 
 
PI planning often sounds and feels humongous, almost 
intimidating! But with practice, rigor and iterations focusing on 
inspection, adaptation and improvement, the experience only 
gets smoother and easier.
 
Our go-to mantra for effective PI is “Plan, Do, Check, Adjust, 
Communicate”.
Below is a ready checklist that has worked for us, please feel 
free to use it as appropriate, we will be glad to hear your 
feedback, suggestions & queries in the comments below.
1.Schedule events of the calendar year in advance (SOS, 
POSync, PI Planning, Inspect & Adapt, System – ART events, 
DSM, Iteration Planning, Backlog refinement, Iteration review – 
Team events) and send the invites to all the stakeholders
2.Ensure participation of all stakeholders like Product 
management, Business Owners, RTEs, Product Owners, 
Architects, Management etc.
3.Focus on management alignment and readiness
4.Refine and ready program backlog with top ten features.
5.Align features on the program board, so they belong to single 
ART
6.Ensure that logistics are in place, collaboration tools are 
checked and ready (Zoom, JIRA, Teams, Miro, Mural etc)
7.Communicate the business context, key milestones, vision as 
part of the Pre PI 
8.Understand past velocity trends, so participating teams can 
balance demand and capacity.
9.Ensure PI objectives are identified and Business value 
assigned.
10.Note that the intent of  business value is to increase 
collaboration and conversations between Business Owners, 
Product management and teams
11. Ensure that PI Objectives are made visible
12. Define PI objectives for a business tone – avoid getting too 
technical in nature
13. Define SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, 
Timebound) PI objectives
14. Ensure  the team objectives  are planned  to roll up to deliver the 
PI objectives 
15. Define sprint goals for individual teams to measure on how 
teams are progressing towards PI goals
16. Prioritize commitment on team objectives over mere 
commitment to stories
17. Avoid breaking down stories and estimation to granular levels
18. Avoid spaghetti like dependencies when capturing dependencies 
on program board 
19. Plan stories with dependencies earlier in PI than later
20. Plan PI only up to planning horizon
21. Avoid upfront detailed PI planning
22. Move objectives to an “uncommitted” bucket in the face 
of low team confidence or external dependencies around 
them 
23. Don’t plan capacity for uncommitted objectives
24. Ensure frequent refresher sessions for stakeholders new 
to PI planning – to increase collaboration levels!
25. Religiously incorporate lessons and learnings from 
previous PI plannings – pay special attention to avoid the 
pitfalls from previous PI planning
26. Use working agreements to instill discipline – ensure 
availability, buy-in and agreement across teams.
27. Understand the progress  and impediments faced by the 
individual teams by ensuring SOS events are held with RTE 
and all the scrum masters of the ART   frequently during PI 
planning
28. Ensure consensus of product management and architects 
around the architecture vision
29. RTE and SM’s must participate rigorously to communicate 
anything that is added new to the Program Increment
30. Treat visibility, availability, ease of access to program and 
team board, dependency map and risk board as matters of 
paramount importance.
We would use the above pointers right 
through the PI Planning process.
For the PI Planning event agenda please 
refer to – SAFe PI Planning
 
If you want to know more about PI planning, 
please refer – 
Introduction to PI Planning to SAFe 
 
Sudha Madhuri
Agile Coach – Benzne
ART – Agile Release Train
RTE – Release Train Engineer
SOS – Scrum of Scrums
PO Sync – Product Owner 
Sync
DSM – Daily Scrum Meeting
SM – Scrum Master