Preparing for PI Planning (30%) Flashcards
Who takes the lead in preparing for PI Planning
Product Managers
What does PI in PI Planning stand for?
Program Increment
What is PI Planning?
A cadence-based event to align the agile teams of an ART to a shared mission and vision
What’s the basic agenda of PI Planning event?
- Business context
- Vision – Architecture, UX, and Product
- Team break-outs
- Risk review
- Retrospective
What are the inputs to the PI Planning event?
- Business Context
- Roadmap and Vision
- Top 10 Features from the Program Backlog
Who facilitates the PI Planning event?
RTE
How long is a PI?
Usually 8 to 12 weeks
For a 12 week PI, how many iterations will usually be done?
5 : 2-week development iterations
1 : Innovation and Planning iteration
What are the 6 business benefits of PI Planning?
- Face-to-face communication across teams and stakeholders
- Aligning development to business goals
- Identifying team dependencies
- Provide just-enough architecture and UX guidance
- Matching demand to capacity & eliminating excess WIP
- Fast decision-making
What are the two primary outputs of PI Planning?
- Committed PI Objectives
- Program Board
Who are the 5 attendees of the PI event?
- Business owners
- Product Management
- Agile teams
- Architects
- System team
Why are business owners included in PI Planning?
Business owners provide:
- The Business Context
- Are an important Guardrail on budgetary spend
What do the architects provide for PI Planning?
Whether Enterprise, System, or Solution architects, they provide
- Architecture Vision briefing
- New Enablers for the Program backlog
- Non-functional requirements (NFR)
What do the uncommitted PI Objectives help to do?
Uncommitted PI Objectives help improve the predicitability of delivering business value
Do uncommitted PI Objectives count towards calculating load?
YES, they count towards load
What do the uncommitted PI Objectives represent?
These used to be called “stretch” ojectives like in OKRs but are not “just in case you have time”
How are PI Objectives different than Features?
The PI Objectives are business and technical goals the team intends to achieve during the PI. The focus should be on understanding the intent of the business owners on the features being delivered stated as outcomes not output (features).
How do business owners assign business value (BV) to PI Objectives
Subjective rating from 1 to 10 for each objective
What does the SMART goals anonym stand for?
S - Specific M - Measurable A - Achievable R - Realistic T - Time-bound
What is the hierarchy to roll-up PI Objectives?
- Solution
- Program
- Team
When you don’t have a historic velocity as guide , what is commonly used heuristic for initial capacity planning?
8 points per developer + tester
What’s the standard color scheme for features (post-its) during PI Planning?
Green - story Violet - Maintenance (defect) Yellow - exploratory enabler Orange - infrastructure enabler Red - Risks and Dependecies
Who creates the vision for an ART?
Product Management
What is the source for creating the ART vision?
Customer feedback and learnings from the ART teams
What guides an ART and provides the feedback loop?
Vision guides the ART –> forward
Release feedback evolves the vision <– feeback loop
What is a Solution/Product vision?
A description of the future state of the product or solution
- What problem does it solve?
- For whom does it provide benefit?
- What NFR does it deliver?
What the time horizons differences for Solution vs PI Roadmaps?
Solution Roadmaps are multi-year, 1 to 3 years
while
Program Roadmaps are 1 to 3 PIs (1 to 3 quarters)
Solution Roadmaps contain what two types of items?
Capabilities and Enablers
Portfolio roadmaps contain what two types of items?
Epics and Enablers
What influences Solution and Program roadmaps?
Market dynamics
What is an Epic?
An epic is a container for a significant Solution development intiative that occurs at the Portfolio level
What is a Feature?
A Feature is a service that fulfills a stakeholder need
What 3 parts does every Feature have?
- Name
- Benefit Hypothesis
- Acceptance Criteria
When do Features need to be split?
When the Feature can’t be delivered in one PI
What is a Story?
Stories are short descriptions of a small piece of desired functionality written from the user’s perspective
What is an Enabler?
Enablers support the building of future Feature and Stories by extending the Architecturual Runway
Which Backlogs can Enablers be found in?
Confusingly, Enablers can be found at the Portfolio, Solution, Program, or Team Backlogs
What are the two types of Epics?
- Business
- Enabler
What 4 parts does each Epic have?
- Lean Business Case
- Definition of MVP
- Epic Owner
- Approval by Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
What 3 primary Design-thinking tools that help PMs in Feature creation?
- Customer Journey Maps
- Personas
- Whole-Product Thinking
What is Design Thinking?
A customer-centric development process that emphasizes:
- Understanding the problem to be solved
- Context in which the solution will be used
- Evolution of the solution
What are other Design-thinking tools?
- Empathy Maps
- Feature-benefit hypotheses
- Story Maps
- Prototypes
What implements a Feature?
Stories
When must Stories be split?
When they will span more than one sprint/iteration
How big are Stories usually?
Stories should be relatively small so that they can be done in a few days and are easily estimatable
What’s the preferred format for Stories?
The Connextra format popularized by Mike Cohn:
As a [user], I want [activity], so that [goal]
What’s the common sizing method for Epics?
T-shirt sizes S, M, L, XL, XXL
How are T-shirt sizes determined?
Each Portfolio determines a relevant cost range from historical data for each T-shirt size.
What are the two types of cost estimated for Epics?
- MVP Cost
- Implementation Cost
What is an Epic MVP?
An MVP is an early and minimal version of a new product or solution that is used to prove or disprove the Epic Hypothesis
What is the hierarchy for the SAFe Requirements Model?
Portfolio: Epics
Solution: Capabilities
Program: Features
Team: Stories
Enablers can be at any backlog level
How are Features estimated?
PM can use historical data to quickly estimate Feature size in Story Points
After T-shirt sizing, how are Epics sizing refined?
Break Epics into Features, size the Features and sum up for the Epic
How are Features costed?
Once you have a Feature estimate in Story Points, times that number by the average cost per Story Point for the team
How is the Average Cost Per Story Point computed?
Average PI Velocity
How are quality expectations set for an Agile Team?
Definition of Done prescribed for Team, Solution, and Release
What does a Definition of Done communicate?
Completeness for an increment of value
Understanding of what work was completed
What are the distinct areas of concern of a Definition of Done?
- Deliverables Validation Policies – acceptance criteria met, unit tests done
- Technical Practices Completed – code check-in, API documentation
- Product Management Tasks Done – release notes, support hand-off
What are the SAFe 4 Backlog levels?
- Portfolio – Epics
- Solution – Capabilities
- Program – Features
- Team – Stories
Remember, Enablers can be at any Backlog level
What Backlog are Features listed in?
Program
What is Capacity Allocation?
This is the percentages allocated in each PI for Features, Enablers, Tech Debit, Maintenance (Defects)
Who has Design Authority for the Program Backlog?
System/Solution Architects
Who has Content Authority for the Program Backlog?
Product Manager
Why is doing Capacity Allocation important during PI Planning
Need to balance new Features with improving the Architectural Runway
What are the 4 Phases displayed on the Program Kanban?
- Continuous Exploration
- Continuous Integration
- Continuous Deployment
- Release on Demand
In a flow system, what’s the KEY to improving economic outcomes?
Job Sequencing
What two costs do you need to know to prioritize based upon Lean Economics?
- Cost of Delay
- Cost of Implementation
What are 3 Feature prioritization anti-patterns?
- HiPPo, CEO’s vote trumps all
- Squeaky wheel
- ROI if used exclusively
In general, what Features should be given preference using Lean Economics?
Features with the shortest duration (points) and higher Cost of Delay
What does WSJF stand for?
Weighted Shortest Job First
How is WSJF calculated?
Job Size
What are the 3 SAFe components for Cost of Delay?
- User-business value
- Time criticality
- Risk reduction and opportunity enablement
Who are the stakeholders to calculate WSJF?
- Business Owners
- Product Managers and Owners
- System Architects
What does the Cost of Delay represent?
It’s a measure of the money of not doing something, or not doing it right away
What design-thinking tool is mostly like to help PI deliver a solution that is differentiated from the competitive offerings?
Whole-product thinking
