Learn planning meeting vocabulary: quarterly planning, PI planning (SAFe), portfolio review, planning horizon, and rough-cut capacity planning used in agile and enterprise environments.
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In SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), multiple Agile teams gather for a 2-day event to align on goals, identify dependencies, and plan the next 8–12 weeks of work across an Agile Release Train. What is this event called?
PI Planning (Program Increment Planning) is the heartbeat event of SAFe, held every 8–12 weeks. All teams in an Agile Release Train (ART) meet face-to-face (or virtually) to plan the next Program Increment — typically 4–6 sprints. Outputs include PI Objectives (team-level OKRs), a Programme Board showing features and dependencies, and team iteration plans. SAFe describes it as 'the most important event in SAFe.'
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Before committing to a quarterly plan, a team checks whether their total workload fits within available person-days after accounting for holidays, support duties, and meeting overhead. What is this activity called?
Rough-cut capacity planning (RCCP) is a high-level check that estimated workload does not exceed available capacity. It does not schedule individual tasks — it just answers 'can we do this much work in this period?' Steps: calculate available person-days, subtract overhead (support, meetings, PTO), then compare to estimated effort of planned items. RCCP is common in PI Planning and quarterly planning to prevent over-commitment.
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During a quarterly planning meeting, the VP of Product asks: 'Are we allocating enough to the three-year horizon, or are we only thinking about the next 90 days?' She is raising a concern about ___________ balance.
Planning horizon refers to how far ahead a plan extends. Organisations typically maintain multiple horizons: H1 (now, 0–3 months, high confidence), H2 (next, 3–12 months, directional), H3 (later, 1–3 years, exploratory). A common pitfall is horizon collapse — where all planning energy goes to the immediate quarter and no strategic thinking happens for H2/H3. Portfolio reviews often include a horizon health check.
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At the end of a quarter, executives and portfolio managers review which initiatives delivered value, which should be continued, which should be stopped, and where to reallocate investment. What is this meeting typically called?
A Portfolio Review (also called a Quarterly Business Review or QBR in many organisations) is where senior stakeholders evaluate the portfolio of initiatives against strategic goals and business outcomes. Unlike a Sprint Review (team-level) or retrospective (process-focused), a portfolio review asks: 'Are we investing in the right things?' It often results in start/stop/continue decisions on epics and funding reallocations.
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During quarterly planning, a team announces they can deliver Feature X in Q2 only if the infrastructure team completes the database migration in Q1. In planning vocabulary, this cross-team timing constraint is called a ___________.
A cross-team dependency is a scheduling constraint where one team's deliverable is required before another team can complete their work. In PI Planning, cross-team dependencies are captured on a Programme Board (a physical or digital board showing features on a timeline with dependency arrows between teams). Unresolved cross-team dependencies are the primary cause of Program Increment delays in scaled agile environments.