The Innovation and Planning Iteration

The Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration occurs at the end of each Planning Interval (PI) and serves multiple purposes. The IP Iteration provides dedicated time for several different activities teams and individuals may undertake, depending on their needs and maturity:

• Innovation: Innovation gives the team time and space to research new technologies, try out new ideas, and create a thinking space to drive better solutions in the future. Teams often do this via hack-a-thon, leveraging design thinking, finding solutions to technical issues, and so on.
• Continuing education: Teams should try and learn new technologies or enhance and build existing skills. They can attend training classes and generally work to expand their T-shaped skills.
• Team/ART building: Improve collaboration between the teams with team-building exercises. Alternatively, they can work collectively to update and refine the various Definitions of Ready, Definitions of Done, and Working Agreements.
• Buffer to meet PI Objectives: Finish Features and refactor and/or fine-tune work that was delivered during the last PI. This may also include some whittling down of technical debt.
• Mature DevOps and CI/CD pipelines: This is an opportune time for upgrades to occur, including infrastructure, system, tooling, patching, and more.
• Measure and grow: Complete Measure and Grow Assessments and compare them with previous PIs. Common assessments include the Team and Technical Agility assessment and Agile Product Delivery assessment.
• PI Planning preparation: Teams meet and often draft initial User Stories, ensure Features are refined, and help create and set up the planning space.

Two key events occur during the IP Iteration that time needs to be set aside for:

• Inspect and Adapt: Typically, one day of the iteration is set aside for the Inspect and Adapt workshop.
• PI Planning: PI Planning typically takes 2 full days in the IP Iteration. If remote sessions, distributed teams, or travel are involved, additional time may need to be allotted.

Pro tip

A hack-a-thon is an event, usually lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few days, in which a large group of people, often with diverse backgrounds and skill sets, come together to collaboratively work on software or hardware projects. The goal of a hack-a-thon is typically to create a functional prototype, solution, or proof of concept for a specific problem or challenge, often within a limited time frame.

IP Iteration Schedule

Most ARTs align on a Wednesday through Tuesday iteration schedule. This schedule avoids many major holidays, and most team members are in the office on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for key events. Let’s look at some example event schedules.

Table 7.1 is an example IP Iteration schedule for in-person PI Planning. Monday and Friday can be used for travel if necessary:

Table 7.1 – Example In-Person IP Iteration schedule

Table 7.2 is an example IP Iteration when planning remotely. The same number of hours are used but are spread across multiple days to minimize “Zoom fatigue.” This schedule can also be used with distributed teams with limited overlap of working hours:

Table 7.2 – Example Remote IP Iteration schedule

Measure and Grow Assessments

Measure and Grow is a critical and often overlooked tool for the teams and ARTs to use to reflect on where they came from, as well as to identify areas for Continuous Improvement. We aren’t going to deep dive into the benefits, learnings, and opportunities that arise from using measure and grow assessments here, but we do need to touch on their value.

We encourage you to use the IP Iteration as a regular cadence for doing assessments with your teams. Then, you can incorporate the results into the Quantitative and Qualitative Measurement section of I&A or use them as potential inputs for the Problem-Solving Workshop.

We don’t recommend executing all the assessments with the teams every PI. We recommend selecting one or two at the most and executing them as a guided and facilitated conversation to ensure that the statements are understood and conversation is encouraged.

Consider using the Team and Technical Agility (TTA) self-assessment each PI and then pick one of the others on a rotating basis, potentially to get feedback on areas the ART might be struggling with where you want some additional insight from the ART or an area that was particularly low or high in the Business Agility assessment.

The Measure and Grow Core Competency Assessments align with the SAFe® Core Competencies and have questions that align with each of their dimensions. The SAFe® Core competencies and assessments are as follows:

• Organizational Agility (OA)
• Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
• Enterprise Solution Delivery (ESD)
• Agile Product Delivery (APD)
• Team and Technical Agility (TTA)
• Continuous Learning Culture (CLC)
• Lean-Agile Leadership (LAL)

Pro tip

As a Coach, we often have to justify the expense/overhead that Coaching incurs. Leveraging Measure and Grow can help with this justification. You can show the impact Coaching is having on the ART in terms of the stability and growth of the metrics.

Responsibilities in the IP Iteration

It is incumbent on all ART members to ensure a successful IP Iteration.

RTE IP Iteration Responsibilities

During the IP Iteration, most RTEs barely have time to breathe. They are ensuring that everything is ready for I&A and PI Planning. It’s coordinated chaos to get all of the pieces in place.

Product Management IP Iteration Responsibilities

Product Management needs to ensure that the Product Owners are working with their teams to wrap up any last-minute items, preparing for the PI System Demo, and ensuring their briefings are ready for the PI event. Product Management may want to lead a hack-a-thon activity.

System Architect IP Iteration Responsibilities

In addition to preparing for the PI event briefing, the System Architect plays a crucial role in collaborating with teams to ensure a thorough understanding of the Enabler’s work for the upcoming PI. This involves working closely with the System Team to coordinate their efforts and provide guidance on the work they are executing. The System Architect also contributes to the successful closeout of the PI by addressing any outstanding issues and ensuring that all necessary work has been completed.

Another valuable opportunity for the System Architect is to team up with Product Owners in organizing and leading a hack-a-thon. A hack-a-thon is a focused event where cross-functional teams come together to work on specific problems or challenges, often involving innovation, problem-solving, or process improvement. By partnering with Product Owners, the System Architect can help identify areas where a hack-a-thon may be beneficial, align the objectives of the event with the overall vision of the product, and ensure that the outcomes of the hack-a-thon contribute to the success of the ART.

During a hack-a-thon, the System Architect and Product Owners can facilitate collaboration, offer guidance, and provide technical expertise to participating teams. This collaborative environment allows for the rapid development of creative solutions, the exploration of new ideas, and the fostering of team engagement and morale. Additionally, hack-a-thons can serve as a valuable learning experience for both the System Architect and Product Owners as they gain insights into team dynamics, individual skills, and potential areas for improvement.

Scrum Master/ Team Coach IP Iteration Responsibilities

The Scrum Masters/Team Coaches help with PI Planning preparation and ensure the teams are ready for all the events. One item that’s often overlooked is calculating the capacity for each iteration for the next PI; make sure not to skip this. The Scrum Masters/Team Coaches will often lead the measure and grow assessments for their teams. They will prepare their team spaces for planning and ensure that the plans are captured in the Agile tool after the event. The Scrum Masters/Team Coaches may also need to facilitate the additional activities that occur during the IP Iteration, such as a hack-a-thon, training, or team-building activities.

Product Owner IP Iteration Responsibilities

Product Owners need to ensure that the team is ready for PI Planning. There is often a lot of last-minute refinement that occurs, as well as ensuring that all work from the PI is closed out. The Product Owners will also work closely with Product Management to ensure successful briefings and will often help the Scrum Masters/Team Coaches in prepping the team spaces and facilitating events.

Team Member IP Iteration Responsibilities

The team members are fully engaged with all the wrap-up work, new skill development, preparation, and execution of the events. As a Coach, encourage the team members to help identify the work that they want to execute in the IP Iteration.

We don’t need an IP Iteration

As a Coach, one of the challenges you will likely face with every single ART you work with is regarding the IP Iteration. This challenge often stems from a misunderstanding of what occurs during the IP Iteration.

During PI Planning, we ask teams to not plan any stories or work in that iteration. As a result, people often mistakenly assume that the teams are not working. After all, we measure the teams by stories completed, right?

You will likely need to justify and push to keep the IP Iteration holistic. Often, Coaches will talk about using it to reduce technical debt, avoid burnout, and increase predictability. While these are noble efforts, and people agree that they are important, they typically don’t carry enough weight to quell the sentiment.

We recommend working with the Troika to identify specific activities that the teams will be doing during the IP Iteration and have them scheduled out in advance of PI Planning and then included in the PI plans as stories. This changes the visual of looking at an empty iteration on the team boards. It shows that the teams are still engaged and “doing work.” One other consideration would be to not have a board for the IP Iteration at all.

Pro tip

As a Coach, it’s critical to execute a successful IP Iteration. Work diligently with your organization to ensure this critical event occurs.