SAFe PI Planning Facilitator

When to Use

• Before a new Program Increment (PI) starts
• When an Agile Release Train (ART) needs to align on the next 8–12 weeks
• When cross-team dependencies must be mapped and risks must be surfaced
• When PI Objectives need to be written with quantified Business Value

Procedure

Step 1 — Preparation (Pre-Event)

1. Collect team capacity for each iteration (available story points or throughput)
2. Pull the prioritized feature backlog from Product Management
3. Identify known architectural and cross-team dependencies
4. Prepare the blank Program Board (teams × iterations matrix)

Step 2 — Day 1: Draft Plan

1. Business Context — Product Management presents vision and top features
2. Architecture Vision — System Architect presents enablers and tech runway
3. Team Breakout #1 — Each team drafts iteration plans, identifies dependencies
4. Draft Plan Review — Teams present plans; stakeholders flag risks
5. Management Q&A — Address impediments, resource conflicts, scope concerns

Step 3 — Day 2: Finalize

1. Team Breakout #2 — Adjust plans based on feedback, resolve dependency conflicts
2. Program Board Finalization — All dependencies mapped as strings on the board
3. PI Objectives — Each team writes 5–8 objectives using SMART format
4. Business Value — Product Management assigns BV score (1–10) to each objective
5. Confidence Vote — Fist of five (1–5); reshuffle if average < 3

Step 4 — Output

1. Compile PI Objectives table (Objective / BV / Committed vs Uncommitted)
2. Generate Program Board visualization (dependency map)
3. Document risks identified during planning
4. Record Confidence Vote result

Inputs

Input	Required	Format
Feature backlog	Yes	Priority-ordered list with descriptions
Team capacity per iteration	Yes	Story points or throughput number
Known dependencies	Recommended	From/To team + feature reference
ART roster	Yes	List of teams in the ART

Output

## PI Objectives — [Team Name]

| # | Objective | Business Value | Type |
|---|-----------|---------------|------|
| 1 | [SMART objective] | 8 | Committed |
| 2 | [SMART objective] | 6 | Committed |
| 3 | [Stretch objective] | 4 | Uncommitted |

## Program Board

| Team / Iteration | I1 | I2 | I3 | I4 | I5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team Alpha | Feature A | Feature B ──dep──→ | | Feature D | |
| Team Beta | | ←──dep── Feature C | Feature E | | |

## Risks (ROAM)

| Risk | Category | Owner | Status |
|------|----------|-------|--------|
| API contract not finalized | Resolved | Arch | ROAM-R |

## Confidence Vote: 3.8 / 5.0 — PROCEED

Definition of Done

• All teams have 5–8 PI Objectives with Business Value scores
• Program Board shows all cross-team dependencies
• ROAM risk board is populated
• Confidence Vote ≥ 3.0
• PI Objectives distinguish Committed vs Uncommitted

Examples

Prompt

We are starting PI 25.2 for our ART with 4 teams.
Here is our feature backlog: [paste features]
Team capacities: Alpha=120sp, Beta=100sp, Gamma=85sp, Delta=110sp
Known dependency: Team Alpha's Payment API is needed by Team Beta in I2.
Generate the PI Planning output including objectives, program board, and risks.

Quality Criteria

• Steps are executable in sequence without external context
• Decision points have clear if/then branching
• Rollback or abort procedures are documented for risky steps
• Expected duration or time-per-step is estimated

Verification (4C)

Check	Question
Correctness	Do the steps execute correctly in the order specified?
Completeness	Are decision points, error handling, and escalation paths all documented?
Context-fit	Could someone with the right access but no prior context complete this runbook?
Consequence	If Step N fails and the operator skips to Step N+1, what breaks?

Edge Cases

• Steps require access the operator doesn't have — Document exact access requirements upfront. Include escalation contact for emergency access.
• Environment differs from documented state — Add a pre-flight check as Step 0 to verify prerequisites before starting.
• Runbook is triggered during off-hours — Document who to contact and which steps can be safely deferred to business hours.

Changelog

• v1.0.0 — Initial release