PI planning: The ultimate guide for 2025

Program Increment (PI) Planning is a cadence-based event that aligns all Agile Release Train (ART) teams to the same mission and vision. It’s a crucial element of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) that organizations need to master if they want to develop and manage successful products.

Increasingly, AI-powered tools — like those found in monday dev — support this alignment by forecasting capacity, optimizing work allocation, and flagging risks automatically — helping teams plan smarter, faster.

In this guide, you’ll learn why organizations use PI planning, who’s involved, what the agenda covers, and how to run successful PI planning events. We’ll also show you how to bring multiple teams together and streamline the PI planning process with monday dev.

Key takeaways

• PI planning is a cadence-based, strategic event that aligns all ART teams to a shared mission and vision for the next program increment.
• Successful PI planning requires collaboration, early risk management, and strong stakeholder alignment to ensure predictable delivery and business value.
• The process involves structured steps — from presenting business context and product vision, to breakout planning and retrospective — helping teams commit to collective outcomes.
• Leveraging software like monday dev, teams can visualize dependencies, automate reporting, and use AI for smarter, faster planning — even with distributed teams.
• Best practices include regular scheduling, clear Agile roles, active retrospectives, and adapting PI planning for both in-person and remote collaboration to maximize success.

What is PI planning?

Program increment (PI) planning is a key event in the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), where multiple teams within the same Agile Release Train (meet to align on goals and plan work for the upcoming program increment.

How long does PI planning take?

PI planning typically occurs every 8 to 12 weeks, but organizations can adjust the timing to their needs. For instance, some organizations prefer 8-week intervals for more agility, while others choose 12-week intervals to align with financial quarters. If sprints are 2 weeks long, one PI consists of 4 to 6 sprints, providing a consistent rhythm for planning and alignment.

Whatever cadence organizations choose, PI planning has a regular, predictable schedule. It’s a fixed time-boxed event that usually lasts for two days. The consistent cadence ensures teams have regular opportunities to synchronize, plan, and adapt their work across the Agile Release Train.

PI planning vs. sprint planning

PI planning and sprint planning are closely linked, yet address different needs at varying levels of scale and detail. Here’s a comparison table highlighting the key differences:

Sprint planning builds directly from PI objectives by translating broad, strategic goals into actionable tasks for the team’s next sprint. Each sprint is designed to make steady progress toward the program’s key outcomes, ensuring that day-to-day work remains aligned with organizational priorities and that teams deliver value consistently throughout the PI window.

Who participates in PI planning?

Because of its collaborative nature, PI planning involves multiple perspectives. Here are the key roles and responsibilities:

Why do PI planning?

The goal of PI planning is to align releases, foster collaboration, manage risks, improve predictability, and ensure teams work efficiently toward shared business goals. While it requires significant time and effort, the benefits almost always outweigh the costs in large-scale Agile development.

Here are the key reasons organizations invest in PI planning:

• Alignment and visibility: All teams within the ART connect to the business context and vision, ensuring clarity on priorities and upcoming work.
• Collaboration and coordination: The event brings teams together to discuss dependencies, foster cross-team collaboration, and make real-time decisions.
• Risk management: Potential issues are surfaced early, giving teams the chance to develop mitigation plans before execution.
• Planning and predictability: With AI-powered predictive analytics, teams achieve more accurate forecasts and build stakeholder confidence in their commitments.
• Resource utilization: Capacity and demand can be balanced more effectively, preventing teams from being overloaded.
• Motivation and clarity: By seeing the bigger picture, teams understand their role in the program and stay motivated around shared goals.
• Stronger networks: Whether in person or remote, the event strengthens trust and relationships across teams and stakeholders.

What are the steps involved in PI planning?

PI planning follows a structured agenda that guides Agile teams through strategic alignment, planning, review, and commitment for the next program increment. Here are the 9 steps involved:

1. Business context presentation: Senior leadership shares the current business environment, market outlook, and high-level goals to set the strategic context for teams.
2. Product vision presentation: Product managers outline the program vision, key priorities, and the main features slated for development.
3. Planning context and expectations: The Release Train Engineer explains the PI planning process, clarifies objectives, and sets expectations for outcomes.
4. Team breakouts: Individual teams review capacity, break down features into user stories, and draft initial plans, identifying dependencies and risks.
5. Draft plan review: Teams present their first draft plans, including PI objectives, risks, and dependencies, for feedback from other teams.
6. Management review and problem-solving: Management facilitates the resolution of cross-team dependencies and roadblocks, ensuring alignment and feasibility.
7. Risk identification and resolution: Teams collectively assess and categorize risks as resolved, owned, accepted, or mitigated, then vote on confidence in meeting objectives.
8. Rework and confidence vote: Teams adjust plans based on feedback and risk assessment, reworking drafts for a higher confidence score in their deliverables.
9. Retrospective and next steps: The Release Train Engineer leads a closing retrospective to capture what worked, what could improve, and actionable lessons for future PI events.

This step-by-step structure keeps the PI planning process organized, ensures stakeholder alignment, and drives collective commitment to shared objectives for the increment.

What are some best practices for PI planning?

Some of the best practices for effective PI planning focus on preparation, stakeholder alignment, clear communication, risk management, and leveraging technology for remote teams.

• Ensure organizational readiness: Schedule PI planning events regularly and communicate them well in advance so all stakeholders can participate; this sets expectations and supports full-team engagement.
• Prepare program vision and content: Share the business mission, current roadmap, and product vision with all team members before the event, so everyone is aligned on priorities and the “why” behind key features.
• Organize logistics for collaboration: Set up physical or virtual meeting spaces to support large group discussions and team breakouts, and make sure everyone has the right tools for clear participation — including video conferencing for remote/hybrid teams.
• Manage scope and participation: Clarify the scope of planning, identify essential team members, and confirm roles like Scrum master, Product owner, and Release Train Engineer. Encourage a shared understanding of responsibilities and priorities.
• Promote open communication: Facilitate regular check-ins and feedback sessions to surface dependencies and risks early; foster honest, respectful dialogue to solve problems and improve plans.
• Proactively identify and address risks: Early risk identification and categorization (resolved, owned, accepted, mitigated) improves transparency and confidence in the final plan. Document and track risks as the increment progresses.
• Run engaging retrospectives: End each PI planning event with a retrospective, so teams can reflect on what worked well, what needs improvement, and actionable ideas for next time — helping drive continuous improvement.
• Leverage digital tools: Use AI-powered planning software like monday dev to visualize dependencies, track objectives, and facilitate collaboration, especially for distributed teams.

By following these best practices, organizations can increase engagement, alignment, and the likelihood of achieving program goals throughout each increment.

How to prepare for a PI planning event

Here are ten essential steps to ensure your organization is well-prepared for a successful PI planning event.

1. Understand and communicate the purpose: Ensure all participants, especially executives and management, clearly understand the goals of PI planning. Communicate that the aim is to create an emergent roadmap and identify potential obstacles.
2. Schedule well in advance: Plan the event for the next quarter at the end of the current quarter. Ensure the availability of all key stakeholders and leaders.
3. Prepare the program vision and context: Determine the program vision and purpose in advance. Ensure program leaders and business stakeholders know how to convey this information.
4. Arrange appropriate facilities: Book a large room that can accommodate about double the number of expected attendees. Ensure proper setup for remote participants, such as video conferencing equipment.
5. Refine the backlog: Review and refine the product backlog. Ensure user stories and features are well-defined and prioritized.
6. Align stakeholders: Engage with business owners and stakeholders to understand the priorities and expectations.
7. Plan logistics: Arrange the necessary tools, resources, and materials. Set up digital collaboration tools if needed.
8. Prepare an agenda: Create a detailed agenda for the two-day event. Include time for business context, vision presentations, team breakouts, plan reviews, etc.
9. Pre-PI planning: Each team should conduct its own pre-PI planning session to prepare initial plans and identify potential risks and dependencies.
10. Set up a program board: Prepare a physical or digital program board to visualize features, dependencies, and milestones.

Modern platforms like monday dev now use AI to transform backlog items, requirements, and meeting notes into actionable user stories and tasks — reducing manual prep and improving quality.

How to run a PI planning event 

Here’s how a typical PI planning agenda plays out over 2 days:

Day 1 agenda

The first-day agenda includes an overview of the business context, product vision, and architecture, followed by detailed team planning and initial reviews of those plans.

Day 2 agenda

The second-day agenda lets teams finalize their plans, address risks, and align on objectives for the upcoming PI. It concludes with a confidence vote to ensure everyone is committed to the plan and a retrospective to improve future PI planning events.

What happens after a PI planning event? 

By following these post-PI planning activities, organizations can ensure that plans are effectively implemented and continuously improved throughout the program increment.

• Next steps: To move objectives forward, teams coordinate calendars to arrange daily standups and iteration meetings.
• Documentation: Teams transcribe objectives, user stories, and the program board into tools like monday dev and update roadmaps based on program objectives.
• Execution: ARTs begin implementing the plans outlined during PI planning and delivering value according to the commitments.
• Post-PI planning events: Further planning sessions involving stakeholders from all Agile Release Trains (ARTs) within the Solution Train take place to ensure synchronization and alignment. Teams present plans, explain objectives, and share milestones and timelines for each iteration and ART.
• Continuous improvement: Teams hold regular Inspect and Adapt (I&A) sessions throughout the increment, reflecting on progress, identifying areas for improvement, and adapting plans as needed to optimize performance.
• Customer feedback: Product owners actively seek and incorporate feedback from customers and end-users so future plans align with customer expectations.

Common PI planning pitfalls to avoid

Here are ten common pitfalls to avoid in your PI planning.

1. Insufficient preparation: Not providing enough context or vision before the event and failing to have a clear backlog or prioritized features ready.
2. Poor time management: Allowing discussions to run over and disrupt the agenda and not allocating enough time for team breakouts or plan reviews.
3. Lack of stakeholder engagement: Not involving key business stakeholders throughout the process and failing to get proper buy-in from leadership.
4. Ignoring dependencies: Failing to identify and manage cross-team dependencies and not visualizing dependencies on the program board.
5. Overemphasis on estimation: Spending too much time on granular details at the expense of other activities and losing sight of the big picture.
6. Neglecting team dynamics: Not promoting a positive and inclusive environment for collaboration. Failing to address conflicts or issues promptly.
7. Skipping the confidence vote: Not conducting or taking the team confidence vote on the plan seriously.
8. Forgetting to review past PIs: Not looking back at previous PI performance to inform current planning.
9. Neglecting retrospectives: Skipping or rushing through the planning retrospective and not implementing improvements based on feedback from previous sessions.
10. Challenges with virtual planning: Failing to adapt the planning process effectively for distributed teams and using inadequate remote collaboration tools.

Using monday dev for PI planning

Built on monday.com Work OS and packed with versatile features, monday dev enables teams and stakeholders to connect and collaborate at every step of the PI planning process. Its built-in AI actions help automate reporting, track team progress, and generate dashboards with predictive analytics, making it easier to monitor PI health and proactively manage objectives.

AI-powered PI planning

Traditional PI planning relies heavily on manual tracking, spreadsheets, and static boards. monday dev brings AI into the process — automatically surfacing dependencies, forecasting team capacity, and turning backlogs into actionable plans. This makes PI planning faster, more accurate, and far more scalable for distributed teams.

Plan with customizable boards

You can adapt customizable boards in monday dev to support every aspect of PI planning. For instance, a program board gives a high-level view of features, dependencies, and milestones across teams, while team boards let individual groups track their PI objectives and break them down into actionable items.

Collaborate in real time

Collaboration is seamless, with real-time updates that allow teams to work on plans simultaneously and instantly see changes, plus built-in comments and discussions to address dependencies, risks, and adjustments as they come up.

Visualize work with multiple views

Visualization features make PI planning easier, whether through Gantt charts that map out timelines, features, and dependencies across the program increment, or Kanban boards that help teams manage their backlog and organize work for the upcoming PI.

Connect tools and automate workflows

Integration features let teams connect monday dev with existing development tools to pull in relevant planning data, while automations can notify team members of updates or changes to keep everyone aligned.

Track progress with AI-driven reporting

Use the reporting features to monitor the advancement of PI objectives throughout the increment. Create dashboards to visualize team capacity, risks, and other key metrics for PI planning. Use built-in AI actions to automate reporting and predictive analytics, giving teams and stakeholders live, actionable insights into planning health.

Streamline your PI planning

Successful PI planning relies on the active participation and alignment of all team members and stakeholders. With monday dev, you have a flexible platform to provide the technical infrastructure, but the event’s success ultimately depends on effective facilitation and team engagement.

Try monday dev to see how you can streamline your PI planning process and get everyone on the same page.