PI Planning / Big Room Planning have become a key part of how many organisations align teams, manage dependencies, and create visibility across large initiatives. While the format may differ from company to company, the challenges are often very similar.
Over the years, I have facilitated, coached, and observed many planning events. Some have been incredibly valuable. Others have felt like two days of meetings that produced a plan nobody looked at again. During our recent Scrum Master Meetup, Bevan Williams and I shared some of the lessons we have learned along the way – you can see the recording here.
Here are some of the practical tips and tricks that consistently make a difference.
1. Don’t Scale Dysfunction
One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is assuming that PI Planning will somehow solve problems that already exist within teams.
If Scrum events are not creating value today, adding another large-scale planning event usually does not fix the problem. In many cases it simply scales the existing dysfunction.
We’ve seen organisations introduce PI Planning because delivery is struggling, dependencies are not being managed, priorities are unclear, and teams are disconnected. Unfortunately, if those underlying issues are not addressed, PI Planning often becomes another event where people sit in meetings, listen to presentations, and leave with little more alignment than when they arrived.
Before introducing PI Planning, spend time understanding the purpose behind it. What problem are you trying to solve? What conversations are currently missing? What decisions are not being made? The event should exist to improve outcomes, not because a framework says it should.
The goal is not to scale planning, the goal is to scale alignment.
2. Do the Planning Before the Planning
One of the most expensive mistakes we see is bringing hundreds of people together only to spend the majority of the event creating plans.
When organisations invest in getting people into the same room, that time should be used for collaboration, alignment, dependency discussions, risk conversations, and decision-making.
Too often teams arrive with little preparation and immediately disappear into breakout sessions to create plans from scratch. At that point, the organisation is paying a premium for people to do work they could have done before the event.
We encourage teams to prepare as much as possible beforehand. Have a draft plan. Understand your priorities. Identify likely dependencies. Come into the event ready to discuss, challenge, and improve the plan rather than create it from nothing.
The more preparation that happens before the event, the more valuable conversations can happen during it.
3. Design the Agenda Around Decisions, Not Status Updates
One of the quickest ways to lose energy in a planning event is making everyone listen to everyone’s plan. Imagine ten teams each spending twenty minutes presenting their work. Very quickly the room becomes passive, people stop listening, and valuable time disappears. Instead, we encourage teams to take ownership of their plans and focus the larger group discussions on the information that actually matters.
Questions such as:
- What has changed since the last planning event?
- Where are your biggest risks?
- What dependencies do you need help with?
- Where do you need decisions from the organisation?
- What could prevent you from succeeding?
These conversations tend to generate significantly more value than detailed walkthroughs of every item on every backlog.
People don’t need to hear everything. They need visibility into the things that impact them.
4. Make Dependencies Visible and Actionable
Dependencies are often where the biggest risks are hiding. One technique we’ve used successfully is creating highly visible dependency boards using 2 coloured wool between teams.
The colours are intentionally simple.
- Red means a dependency has been identified, but the teams involved have not yet aligned on how it will be managed.
- Blue means the conversation has happened and there is an agreed plan in place.
This creates a very different dynamic during the planning event. Instead of focusing on identifying dependencies, teams focus on converting red dependencies into blue dependencies. The conversation shifts from documenting risk to actively reducing risk. By the end of the event, the dependency board provides an immediate visual indication of where uncertainty still exists and where teams have already aligned.
The wool itself is not important. The conversations it creates are.
5. Use Open Space for Risk Resolution
One of my favourite techniques is something we call Risk Resolution.
As risks emerge during planning, we capture them on a visible board throughout the event. Rather than forcing everyone to sit through every discussion, we create dedicated risk resolution sessions using an Open Space approach.
People vote with their feet and join the conversations most relevant to them.
This has several benefits. Firstly, the right people end up discussing the right problems. Secondly, multiple risks can be worked on simultaneously. Finally, ownership naturally emerges because people choose to participate in the discussions where they can contribute.
Some of the most valuable conversations during a planning event happen during these sessions because they focus on solving real problems rather than talking about work.
6. Bring Some Energy Into the Room
Let’s be honest. Planning events can be exhausting. People are concentrating for long periods, discussing complex topics, managing competing priorities, and making difficult decisions.
One thing we’ve learned is that a little fun goes a long way. Whether it’s a countdown challenge, an interactive activity, friendly competition between teams, or simply creating moments for people to laugh together, these activities help maintain engagement and create stronger connections across teams.
People collaborate better when they know each other. They solve problems faster when they trust each other. And they generally leave the event with a far more positive experience.
Sometimes the most valuable outcome of a planning event isn’t the plan itself. It’s the relationships that were strengthened while creating it.
Final Thoughts
The best PI Planning events are rarely the ones with the most detailed plans. They are the ones that create alignment, expose risks early, strengthen relationships, and help people make better decisions together.
And that is where facilitation becomes critical. The best PI Planning events are not driven by the board, the agenda, or the tooling. They are driven by great conversations. If you want to improve how you facilitate those conversations, our Training from the BACK of the Room (TBR) course is packed with practical techniques that can immediately improve your planning events, workshops, and retrospectives.
Because great planning events don’t happen by accident. They happen when great facilitation creates the conditions for great conversations.
