Big room planning (which may also be called PI planning or quarterly planning) is essential, when scaling Agile. The objective of the event is to find a good rhythm for work, increase predictability and add transparency all the way from strategy to development teams work. Ensure a successful planning event with Taskmill professional.
The planning event brings together the development and business teams of the value stream as well as their stakeholders. During the event Business owners and Product Management presents the organisations strategic goals and vision along with the highest priority features. Teams slice features into stories and estimate how much value can be achieved and which items are possible to implement during the next quarter.
Outcome of the planning day or days are the program board, team objectives and managed risks. The program board visualises the plan for the next three months including the dependencies.
The event may happen in one big room as suggested by the name, but often times we need to run it fully virtually or in hybrid manner. There are typically some 50 to 150 people joining. Facilities and tools needs to be chosen accordingly.
All this may feel challenging and chaotic without the needed experience, but we are here help you. Taskmill’s professionals can help you to succeed and achieve value from the very first workshop. We recommend to get an experienced facilitator for your fist planning event, and when you grow your own experience we can the move to support from the background. Read how Landis+Gyr started their journey with Taskmill.
Planning event is always tailored to best suit your needs.
This is how we can help you in the Big Room Planning
Before the planning (minimum one month before the planned event)
- Build the schedule and agenda for the event
- Recognise the required people and send out invitations
- Content is the key. It’s essential to ensure there is enough backlog items, and that the items are on a good-enough level. Backlog needs to be prioritised. Features and their priorities are talked through with the business representatives. If needed, a prioritisation workshop can be organised.
- For RTE / facilitator we can offer a “The Complete Guide to PI planning or Big Room Planning” training.
- Agreeing on speakers for the event, and if needed, coaching of the speakers
- Facilities, e.g. premises, materials, tools, network etc.
A few days before the planning:
- Socialising the new features with the development teams
- 3 hour introduction training for all participants: The Secrets of the PI-training to get everyone on the same page on what is happening during the planning and what is expected from each role
- Last check to see if everything required is done
During the planning (1 to 3 days) our facilitator:
- Opens the event with the needed business people and stakeholders
- Business priorities and roadmap
- Architecture and architectural runway
- Introduction to team breakouts
- Helps teams plan, collaborate with other teams and stakeholders and to keep the schedule
- Collaborates with the stakeholders
- Helps teams set and write SMART objectives for the next quarter (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound), in business language
- Helps business and Product Management assess the teams objectives and set the business value for each
- Assists teams slice the features into manageable backlog items and recognise the dependencies with the other teams.
- Helps teams visualise the dependencies and agrees on documenting the dependencies for the actual implementation
- Helps teams and stakeholders to recognise risks and facilitates the risk ROAMing (Resolved, Owned, Accepted, Mitigated)
- Guides teams to present their plans and the program board
- Guides the business and stakeholders to understand and evaluate the program board
- Helps managing the prioritisation throughout the planning event
- Facilitates the confidence vote
- Facilitates the management review and possible problem solving
- Facilitates the retrospective and documents and improvement ideas
After the planning our coach will
- Plans and schedule the learnings from the event
- Give written recommendations for the next planning event
We will help you succeed the first time. Contact us, and let’s plan Your event: