PI Planning Foundations for Agile Teams

Large-scale Agile development requires seamless alignment across multiple teams, but coordinating hundreds of developers can easily lead to chaos. Program Increment (PI) Planning serves as the heartbeat of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), ensuring everyone marches toward the same strategic goals. This text-only course provides a comprehensive introduction to this critical event, giving you the knowledge needed to contribute effectively from day one. In this course, you will transition from understanding basic single-team Agile to mastering the mechanics of large-scale coordination. You will gain the confidence to participate in or help facilitate PI Planning events, manage complex cross-team dependencies, and adapt these practices for modern distributed workforces. Through clear written explanations and practical scenarios, you will learn how to turn strategic roadmaps into executable team plans. What you'll learn: - Understand the core terminology, roles, and business value of PI Planning within Scaled Agile. - Prepare effectively for the planning event by aligning business context, product vision, and top features. - Map dependencies, identify risks, and draft realistic team PI objectives. - Navigate the standard planning agenda, including draft plan reviews, management problem-solving, and final commitment. - Apply modern digital collaboration tools and best practices for facilitating hybrid or fully remote PI Planning. - Establish clear post-planning execution loops and track progress throughout the increment. The course begins with foundational concepts and essential terminology before guiding you step-by-step through the pre-planning, event execution, and post-planning phases. You will read real-world scenarios and complete written exercises designed to simulate the decision-making required during a live planning event. This course is designed for beginners new to Scaled Agile, including software developers, product owners, Scrum masters, and business stakeholders. No prior experience with SAFe or PI Planning is required. Start reading today to learn how to align your teams and drive predictable delivery at scale.