PI Planning/ Big Room Planning / Tribe Planning is not an Indian FAT WEDDING !!!
By: Anubhav Sinha
Tags: Risk, Pi Planning, Agile, Transformation, Business Strategy

Hello Readers — I am sharing this article and information based on my experiential journey that “PI Planning / Big Room Planning is NOT an Indian Fat wedding”. Nowadays, I have observed (while discussing to different Org folks) and even have had experienced that the Organizations are behind scaling their transformation journey and move ahead ufront with big room planning / PI planning / Tribe planning events. I am sharing an understanding based on my experential learning gathered after being part of various PIs/Tribe planning of various domains/ programs/ tribes in multiple organizations.

What being as an author of this article — I am trying to highlight by bringing Indian FAT wedding analogy !

Herein, in this article, you will find analogy of the Indian Wedding, brief about ceremonies/rituals, what are their objectives and purpose, who is the audience and their purpose etc. that will assist in simulating with PIs/BRP.

What all ceremonies are involved in 2–3 days of a marriage ceremony & Big Room / PI Planning?

In this section, you will find information about the definition of words like ceremony, the meaning of rituals, the definition of the other words as Roka ceremony, mehndi, sangeet ceremony and the reception party that will assist you in understanding pre and post ceremonies of marriage. Let’s see the meaning of the word ceremony — a formal religious or public occasion, especially one celebrating a particular event, achievement, or anniversary | the ritual observances and procedures required or performed at grand and formal occasions.

Image 1: Details of a marriage ceremony

Image 2: Details of PI / Tribe / Big Room Planning

In image 1 and 2 above, you will find out the details of a marriage ceremony as well as PI/ Tribe planning.

Meaning of Rituals — a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

Tilak Ceremony is one of the most important Pre Wedding Ceremonies;

Roka ceremony is performed on a mutually convenient date backed by ‘shubh muhurat’. This is a simple function, which is attended by family members and close friends. Roka ceremony is considered to be one of the most significant and auspicious pre-wedding ceremonies in Indian weddings.

Sangeet ceremony is among the many pre-wedding events that occur prior to wedding ceremonies, the Sangeet is where the party begins. The word Sangeet translates to ‘sung together’ from Sanskrit.

Mehndi is yet another traditional yet exciting pre-wedding ceremony. In Indian weddings, a lot of emphases is given on customs and rituals and the same is reflected in the Mehndi ceremony before marriage.

A wedding reception is a party usually held after the completion of a marriage ceremony (post-wedding ceremony) as hospitality for those who have attended the wedding, hence the name reception.

In the above section, you read about the pre-wedding and post-wedding ceremony.

These details will help oneself to understand — What is the key Objective and purpose of various ceremonies of a marriage ceremony?

So, you will find that objective of the audience of the marriage ceremony is to be part of several/few/all ceremonies to have as a family gathering, full-party enjoyment, dance, song, music and lavish dinner accompanies by a lot of fun that assist people to rejuvenate themselves, together.

What is PI Planning?

“Program Increment (PI) Planning is a cadence-based, face-to-face event that serves as the heartbeat of the Agile Release Train (ART), aligning all the teams on the ART to a shared mission and Vision. For geographically distributed ARTs, the event may occur at multiple locations simultaneously by maintaining constant audio and video communication between the sites.” Scaled Agile Framework

Let’s visualize and understand the objective PI planning. The key objective of the event is for teams to create their plans and objectives for the next PI increment (typically 12 weeks) and do this via face to face conversations. There are numerous benefits of doing PI Planning / Tribe Planning / BRP that include fast decision-making, matching demand to capacity and managing excess work in progress, encouraging collaboration and face to face conversations around cross-team dependencies, aligning development to business goals — and the list goes on. Feedback from some of the PI Planning events I attended echoed much of these benefits, particularly the fact that everyone was available on the day which helped with collaboration. Below you will find a number of prerequisites that include:

Planning scope and context — Is the scope (product, system, technology domain) of the planning process understood?

(product, system, technology domain) of the planning process understood? Do we know which teams need to plan together? Business alignment — Is there reasonable agreement on priorities among the Business Owners?

— Is there reasonable agreement on priorities among the Business Owners? Team Composition — Do we have the required team composition? Are there all skills available which are required to make a cross-functional team and an identified Scrum Master and Product Owner for the team?

Let’s emphasize with the cost associated:

Before we move ahead and read more, Below in the image 3, you can see the cost associated with 1-day engagement, considering 8 hours as a working/billable (cost associated as nothing comes free) hours per day. Also, Considering 100 people in 2 days of PI planning at all level i.e. from Portfolio to Team, the cost associated would be:

Image 3— Sample Cost of 50 people for 8 hours (reference — HBR)

USD $22, 456 for 50 people, so for 100 people it will be USD $44,912 for a day and for 2 days, it will be USD $89,824. Eventually, let’s consider other expenses as logistics, meals (includes, boards, physical boards, sharpies, food and beverages, big room booking, auditorium etc.). Let’s consider USD $70 per person per day, so the cost will be 70*100 = USD $7000 per day and for two days it will cost USD $14,000. (*Sometimes if it is booked in auditorium or hotels the cost will be on the higher side.)

So, Total cost= USD $89,824 + USD $14,000 = USD $1,03,824. So, we are aware of a ball-park expense how much we do for a 2 days event.

Objectives of a PI Planning

Program Increment (PI) Objectives are a summary of the business and technical goals that an Agile Team or train intends to achieve in the upcoming Program Increment (PI). During PI planning, teams create PI objectives, which provide several benefits:

Provide a common language for communicating with business and technology stakeholders Aligns the train with a shared mission Creates the near-term vision, which teams can rally around and develop during the PI Enables the ART to assess its performance and the business value achieved via the Program Predictability Measure Communicates and highlights each team’s contribution to business value Exposes dependencies that require coordination

Business Benefits of PI Planning

PI planning delivers many business benefits, including:

Establishing face-to-face communication across all team members and stakeholders Building the social network the ART depends upon Aligning development to business goals with the business context, Vision, and Team and Program PI objectives Identifying dependencies and fostering cross-team and cross-ART collaboration Providing the opportunity for ‘just the right amount’ of architecture and Lean User Experience (UX) guidance Matching demand to capacity, eliminating excess Work in Process (WIP) Fast decision-making

Image 4 — PI Participants — How do they foresee!

Above in image 4, you will find — many times people (PI participants) gather to have a great breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. People often miss the reason behind for which they all gathered — to work towards business value and creating common understanding for the next 2–3 months by identifying objectives, shared-vision, short-term goal, stretch-objectives, risk and dependencies, etc. so that they can highlight what would be expected in the next 2–3 months and how they can contribute towards business value.

Before we close and say bye, let’s look for the takeaways:

The cost associated with the business goal (PI planning) and the marriage ceremony is not the same. The cost associated with 2 days PI Planning has an impact on the running cost that is contributed to have an outcome in near term goal. The objectives of participants in the marriage ceremony (pre or post ceremonies) are to have enjoyment, fun, gathering, family gathering. These participants do not have a shared vision or goal for the next 3 months. The objectives of PI planning participants are to enhance understanding, common share understanding, identify and know dependencies, understand the flow of information from portfolio to the team, what is expected for the business, what value does a business owner is looking In PI — people also contribute to know and understand which areas are aspirationals and committed so that they can understand prioritized items based on various combinations Identify dependencies and foster cross-ART coordination A set of aggregated specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound (SMART) PI objectives for the solution A solution planning board, which highlights the capabilities, anticipated delivery dates, and any other relevant milestones for the solution A confidence vote (commitment) to the solution PI objectives

Let’s keep Learning and Practice ON!

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References: Scaled Agile Framework and the authors own experience gained

*Disclaimer1 — The information shared in this blog/article is the author’s own thoughts and experienced pointers, learning gained and welcome other input-Comments from the readers.

*Disclaimer2 — These references are from the author’s own learning journey, experienced, observed-gained in my learning journey as an Agile Coach, Product Owner, Customer Journey Contributor, Customer orientation member, Value Stream creation and mapping etc.

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