Lessons Learned from Running a Remote PI Planning on Short Notice:

March 2020, the globalization gets into crises due to COVID-19. Travel is limited to strictly necessary, and business travel is no longer a necessity. Program Increment planning is an in-person event. It is based on post-its, one-room energy, face-to-face communication, meeting everyone together, networking. Converting the PI planning into a remote session would be like taking its purpose. But, so COVID-19 did — it changed our lives for good.

Lessons Learned from running a SAFe Remote Program Increment Planning Meeting

Since it was such a game-changer for everyone, I took the time to document my learnings and the ones from my peers while running our first Remote PI planning on short notice.

• Use a minimum of tools, easy to train, enable the teams as soon as possible. Explain how to use them briefly. Try to don’t introduce new tools. It is not about the most natural means to use in each situation, but about the tool which requires the minimum of training to use it.
• Use the same tools across teams.
• The Release Train Engineer (RTE) gives clear and straightforward directions.
• Microsoft OneNote is not a tool to use for the retrospective.
• Use video cameras for the team virtual rooms if bandwidth allows it
• Try to plan directly in your Project Management tool (Jira…