SAFe® PI planning
Coordinate delivery across multiple agile teams with four program increment (PI) planning templates
Use template
About the SAFe® PI planning templates
PI planning is a multi-day event that is scheduled at the start of each program increment. The goal is to bring together everyone in the agile release train (ART) — including agile teams, business stakeholders, and product managers/owners — to review the program backlog and create a plan to deliver the work.
Use this set of templates — which includes program, ROAM, sprint planning, and retrospective boards — to facilitate your planning session. You will want to prepare each board before the start of the planning event to get the most out of your time together.
Start with the program board, filling in your overall PI objectives, milestones, and backlog of features. This sets high-level context — so the team has a clear picture of the functionality they are responsible for implementing. From here, teams can use the sprint planning board to dive into the details of the work. Identify cross-team dependencies, capture risks on the ROAM board, and then hold a confidence vote for the PI. At the end of the meeting, hold a retrospective to gather feedback on what went well with the planning event and what needs to be changed or improved for the next one.
With so much to coordinate in a short period of time, effective collaboration is key. These whiteboard templates will ensure that everyone has access to the same information and can fully participate in the event — no matter whether teams are co-located or remote. When you are ready to formalize your PI plans, consider using Aha! Develop to streamline delivery.
Best practices
Use these four program increment (PI) planning templates — program board, team sprint planning, ROAM, and PI retrospective — to coordinate delivery across multiple agile teams. Align on the objectives, deliverables, and milestones that need to be met, so you can effectively work together to achieve success.
Plan your program increment
Define your PI objectives and milestones. Then visualize the features you want to deliver, organize them by team and sprint, and identify dependencies between them.
Organize sprints by team
Use the team sprint planning template to break your features into stories and plan iterations by team. Note any known risks on the right side of the template.
Assess program risks
Assess the risks of your PI with the ROAM board template. Type each risk into sticky notes on the left, then move them into the appropriate quadrant as you gain more insight.
Conduct a planning retrospective
Determine what went well with your planning event and what you will change for next time. The retrospective template helps you improve efficiency for future sessions.
