November 8, 2023 - Marshall Guillory, Scaled Agile SAFe Practice Consultant Trainer (SPCT).
PI Planning is a keystone event in the Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Enterprises (SAFe)1 where teams come together to create alignment to a common vision for the product/solution and a shared vision and mission for the value stream network. As in many cases, the Agile community has borrowed a concept from Lean, or Toyota Production System, and applied it in the context of large scale, complex adaptive systems.
PI Planning in SAFe is a cadenced event that includes a broad spectrum of stakeholders from the network and both systems in an organization (the hierarchy and the entrepreneurial value stream network). We also encourage customer participation – either internal or external – to enhance outcomes, alignment, and communication with our focus on customer centricity.
Obeya Origin Story
The origin story of Obeya4, or “Large Room” is told in the context of the development of the Toyota Prius vehicle with the remarkable and successful Toyota Production System. From there historical references go back 2500 years to the teachings of Confucius. In modern times Dean Leffingwell popularized the concept of “big room planning” when it was canonized in the SAFe. There are also ties back to the Manifesto for Agile Software Development2 principles that support SAFe PI Planning.
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development2
Enter Scaling Agile
Dean Leffingwell introduced the concept of Release Planning in version 1.0 of the SAFe3 in his popular book, Agile Software Requirements3. SAFe has four core values and 10 principles in addition to the inherited values from the Manifesto for Agile, Scrum, Lean, and Systems Thinking.
We know that guiding principles and values are how we change complex systems over time. I thought it would be a fun thought experiment to tie in the 11 principles of Obeya, according to the Obeya Association4, to SAFe PI Planning, with one addition – the Twelfth Man. It will be interesting to observe how well the principles hold up over the next 100 years through innovation, technology, and never ending change cycles.
The Twelve Principles of SAFe PI Planning
Mindset
1. People come together in the Obeya to respectfully see, learn & act on vital information
SAFe amps this concept by including all of the stakeholders in a value stream network – the people doing the work, the people responsible for funding the work, and the customers receiving the value
2. People are committed to engage in continuous improvement, resolving obstacles along the way
The SAFe ART Planning Board is a mechanism and practice in SAFe that the ART uses to make obstacles, impediments, dependancies visible so that they can be addressed. The ART is expected to manage its risks. Mitigate, Accept, Take Ownership of the Solution, or Resolve the risk, impediment or obstacle immediately. SAFe focuses on relentless improvement and Building Quality into the product/solution.
Alignment
3. In the Obeya, we communicate a strong sense of purpose
Leaders, Business Owners and Product Management are responsible for communicating the vision, roadmap, and priorities of the business in the context of the planning interval (PI) and near term roadmap to give purpose for the event and PI.
4. Purpose is recognizably tied to our organizational strategy through meaningful objectives
SAFe utilizes PI Objectives at the Team and ART context to influence and drive the team of teams and network towards common and shared understanding and ultimately commitment to the objectives. Additionally, Strategic Themes are expressed as objectives and key results (OKRs) that have connections to the work introduced into the PI.
5. The Obeya connects strategy to execution with visible orientation on customer experience
The use of Strategic Themes and Epics in SAFe provides a direct chain of value development and agile progression from the fiduciaries making investment decisions, through the market and Agile Product Delivery and Continuous Exploration, the people doing the work in the ART, and penultimately Customer Centricity and the release of a value increment to the customer.
6. The Obeya meetings have a rhythm in sync with the operational heartbeat of the organization
SAFe events are cadenced and synchronized. Planning Intervals are 8-13 weeks depending on your system parameters. This establishes a heartbeat for a SAFe Portfolio and collection of Development Value Streams.
Workspace
7. The Obeya visuals provide a logical and practical information and conversation flow
During PI Planning, the teams create a rolling wave forecast plan for the planning interval. Teams plan work in iterations at a high level using features and stories as the structure and context of work. Risks and dependencies are made visible, emerge, and are resolved, owned, accepted, or mitigated (ROAM). This process is designed to have emergent details be made visible, transparency being key, so that a better and more accurate forecast may be created by the team of teams.
8. The Obeya reflects a good understanding of the flow of work from start to delivery
The Portfolio has mapped its Value Streams, first conducting a Value Stream Identification Workshop, followed by a Value Stream Mapping Workshop. The design and topologies for the Development Value Streams, Agile Release Trains (ARTs), and Teams have been well planned and thought out using Design Thinking and the Team Design Strategy Workshop. The ART attended the SAFe DevOps course and understands where the constraints are in their system and has begun the work of building the Architecture Runway, invested in enablers, and is building out the Continuous Delivery Pipeline. Measurements have been put in place through automation including providing telemetry data to support fast, accurate, and authoritative decision making.
9. The Obeya is an attractive and available area, in proximity to the workfloor
PI Planning is facilitated in a “large room” when in person, and designed for high collaboration when done remotely using technology and software tools. People are incentivized to participate through invitation, a welcoming environment, even provided food, time and space, and the safety necessary to achieve the goals of the event.
Content
10. In the Obeya, we use analytics-driven-evidence to make business decisions.
In SAFe the Inspect & Adapt (I&A) event is held just before the PI Planning event. Facts are friendly. The first two parts of I&A are direct observation of the evidence of the actual performance of the system. The PI System Demo provides objective evidence of the current state of the solution/products through empiricism. The Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis provides the actual as-run system analytics-driven-evidence. During PI Planning, decisions about value, prioritization, sequencing of work, and risks will be made and a plan of action and objectives will be committed to.
11. Data owners ensure information is easy to consume, readily available, up to date, and visually attractive
SAFe introduces new roles designed and curated to serve the purposes of an organization or system achieving Business Agility. All SAFe Roles are potential data owners in SAFe. The system is designed as a team-based shared responsibility model, not a traditional reductionist hierarchy.
The Twelfth Man
12. The spirit and culture of the organization fuels a successful event and commitments
It is the twelfth man that will provide the necessary energy to drive a PI Planning event to a successful conclusion. The twelfth man can create and influence action to overcome challenges, impediments, blockers, risks, and create energy for the team of teams and stakeholders.
References
- Obeya from Toyota Production System5
- Article: https://thinkinsights.net/strategy/obeya/
- scaledagileframework.com – https://scaledagileframework.com/pi-planning/ ↩︎
- https://agilemanifesto.org/ ↩︎
- Leffingwell, Dean, and Donald G Reinertsen. Agile Software Requirements : Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise. Upper Saddle River (Nj), Addison-Wesley, , Cop, 2012. ↩︎
- https://obeya-association.com/obeya-principles/ ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obeya ↩︎