Tips that will help you make your remote PI Planning event according to the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) a success.

1. Effective Remote PI Plannings
Four main pillars that help you to make your remote PI Planning event a success

2. PI Planning Event
Distributed & Dispersed Teams
page
02
Distributed
Team members are co-
located in one place but
the complete team is
distributed across several
places
Example: You have four
cross-functional teams:
1 team from Frankfurt
1 team from Bangalore
1 team from Zurich
1 team from Munich
Dispersed
Some team members are
in one place, and some
team members are in
another
Example: You have four
teams, each with:
1 person from Frankfurt
3 persons from Bangalore
1 person from Zurich
2 persons from Munich
Soucre: https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2010/10/dispersed-vs-distributed-teams/

3. Four main pillars
to be considered
page
03
Content
Readiness
Infrastructure
Readiness
Team Readiness
Organizational
Readiness

4. Organizational
Readiness
page
04
Preparation
Regular (daily) coordination with
RTE, PM (PO) and the Scrum
Masters to have visibility on the
preparation status
Startpage
Create an overview on which the
team names, agenda, links to the
meeting rooms, contact persons,
etc. are listed in order to have one
point of reference for all
information (see example page 4)
Agenda
Adapt the agenda to current
circumstances, extend the PIP to
2,5 or 3 days, plan more breaks,
e.g. 10 minutes every 50 minutes
Facilitators
It is recommended to have one
Scrum Master per team and to
have additional facilitators who
master the tool used in order to
help for e.g. with the Risk,
Dependency or Program Board
Dry run
Conduct a dry run, especially when
it will be you first PI Planning with
the chosen infrastructure setting
Tech support
Experts (who should not be part of
the teams) who can be contacted
in case of problems or specific
questions about the tools used

5. Startpage (click to join)
Startpage
Example
Team 5
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Team 6
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Team 7
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Team 8
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Team 2
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Team 1
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Team 3
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Team 4
Meeting Link:
Product Owner:
Scrum Master:
Scrum of Scrums
Meeting Link:
Train Master:
Agile Coach:
Product Management
Meeting Link:
Product Manager:
Product Owner Manager:
Agenda Business Context Retrospective
Confidence Vote Tech SupportChat Overview
Board Overview
page
05

6. Infrastructure
Readiness
page
06
For: Each team + PM / PO and RTE / SM
Video: Google Meet, WebEx Meetings, Zoom – Whiteboard: Miro, Klaxoon
(Video) Breakout rooms incl. a virtual whiteboard
For: PM / PO, RTE / SM each - to stay in contact outside the fixed sync slots
Slack, MS Teams
Chats
For: Teams to enter user stories and ”to feed” the boards (Program, Risk, etc.)
Jira, VersionOne
Backlog management
Retrospective*
For: All – provide feedback on the PIP
Mentimeter
Confidence Vote**
For: All – commit to the PI objectives
Mentimeter
**Optionally: Conduct a “pre confidence vote“ within the team(s) prior to the final vote – maybe helpful, depending on how the planning went
*To ensure that everyone can provide feedback and to increase the quality of feedback, the SM can conduct a retrospective for their individual team, consolidate the feedback received and later present it to everyone

7. Content
Readiness
page
07
Feature Priorities
Ensure clarity of the feature
priorities as early as possible in
order to avoid „last minute
reprioritisation“
Feature Description
Sensitize the PM that each feature
has a very detailed description of
what it is about and what the
requirements are in order to
prevent room for interpretation by
the teams - clarity is key
Flexibility
If a higher degree of flexibility is
needed to be able to react to new
requirements, a certain percentage
of priorities can be kept free up to
one week before the PIP – and
then planned step by step
Acceptance criteria
Sensitize the teams that each user
story must have clear and
comprehensible acceptance
criteria
Digitalisation
Digitisation of the content in the
respective tool, e.g. Jira or
VersionOne (tip: use bulk uploads)
Risks & Dependencies
Use a separate boards for risks
and dependencies

8. Team
Readiness
page
08
Hardware
Ensuring that all team members have the necessary
hardware (laptop, microphone and camera) in the
office or home office
All team members have clarity about the process and
their role during the PI Planning
Clarity
Optional: Definition of team internal rules
Rules of cooperation
Ensure that all team members have access to and are
familiar with the tools used. If not, perform trainings in
order to ensure for instance, that user stories can be
created and edited by all team members, not just
individuals
Access & handling

9. PI Planning
Further Tips
page
09
01
Preparation
It cannot be said often enough, extensive
and above all timely preparation is the key
to success
04
Microphone
Some tools allow to mute the microphones
of all participants by one click or when
people join a session. Very helpful,
especially for agenda points with a lot of
people, e.g. business context, retrospective
02
Discipline
A remote PI Planning (PIP) requires a lot of
discipline. Some simple but important rules
should be explained how everyone can
contribute to the success of the PIP, e.g.
being punctual, pay attention, etc.
05
Camera
All participants should turn on the camera
to improve the collaboration, especially
during the team breakout sessions
03
Scrum Master Role
A strong moderation and a good feeling for
the team is necessary, e.g. is there
uncertainty about the requirement? Do all
team members get involved? Is a break
necessary? etc.
06
Additional Facilitators
Plan with additional facilitators who can
help to manage the different boards, have a
look at one or several chats, etc.

10. Our
Contact
page
010
Address
Berger Straße 175
60385 Frankfurt
+49 (0) 69 153269 01
info@scaled-innovation.com
Contact
Alexander Dittrich
alexander.dittrich@scaled-
innovation.com
linkedin.com/company/scal
edinnovation