Team Backlog preparation for PI Planning

Having a Team Backlog that is ready for PI Planning is important in that it allows the team to focus on dependencies, ensuring alignment with the Vision, architecture, and Roadmap. They have the time and space to collaborate with other teams, create plans with high confidence, and draft PI Objectives at the event.

Each team will be different in the amount of preparation needed for PI Planning. We have found success when the teams have identified and roughly estimated the stories for the next PI ahead of PI Planning. These stories (except those that will likely be worked on in the first iteration) aren’t well refined and wouldn’t meet the DoR.

You will want to ensure that your teams don’t go into PI Planning with a fully refined and planned backlog, knowing what stories will go into which iterations and then spend the event staring at each other. You may even find that they become overly attached to their plans and...