PI Objectives are goals crafted by the team outlining what they intend to achieve during the upcoming Planning Interval (PI). These objectives can be either committed or uncommitted. If you are familiar with working with Sprint goals, you can consider PI Objectives as operating at a higher level, applied to the entire PI rather than just a sprint. The underlying principle remains the same.
Typically, this evaluation occurs on the second (or third, in the case of multiple time zones) day of PI Planning. Business owners engage in a dynamic process where they walk around, visiting each team, and attribute business value to the respective PI Objectives. Each objective is given a relative number on a scale from 1 to 10. Where 1 is the lowest business value and 10 is the highest.
It is a subjective measurement, and it is to be viewed for exactly what it named, what the business values, right now. Given that the business owner is ultimately responsible for the success of the business, taking the time during PI Planning to engage with all teams is a worthwhile investment for gaining clarity and insight into the next three months of development.
A noteworthy aspect involves a subtle psychological power dynamic. The business owner should be the one going to the teams and asking if they can disturb them to have a dialogue about the business value. This approach contrasts with teams presenting their PI Objectives for assessment, establishing a balanced power dynamic.
This is an often-skipped part during many PI Planning I have been on, and I’ve seen many confused discussions between teams and business owners around business value. However, there is really magic at work when you nail this part of your PI Planning.
During one PI planning I facilitated a team once had a PI Objective to conduct an analysis of situation X to determine whether it was a problem. The business owner assigned the objective a 10 the discussion that followed this when a teammate questioned if the analysis really had such high value that the business owner had assumed that the team also would be able to address what they found in their analysis. the team clarified that there was a need for a more in-depth analysis and that it was very unlikely that they had time to also address any issues. What followed what a lot of joint brainstorming of if it was possible to scope it differently and also more dialogue around specific pinpoints that could be addressed earlier.
In the end the objective was assigned a 1. They had a lof of discussions back and forth if there was value in the knowledge gained. And true you could argue either way. But the important part was not the actual number, it was the alignment and discussion had. The value lies not just in the assigned numerical values but in the discussions that unfold between the business owner and the team.
Writing SMART PI Objectives is challenging, and without dialogue, much can be lost in translation. Having the opportunity to have a joint dialogue can spark numerous questions and discussions. That both give the team better insight into what business values right now and the business owners more clarity on how their business will develop in a near future. It’s also a chance to influence that thru the discussions and subjective value being assigned on the objective as this might guide the team during the PI.
Depending on the culture and level of psychological trust. I usually recommend that there should not be a universal rule of all teams getting at least one 10. The reason I coach like this is that I found that there are much more deep discussions happening if that is not the case and it can also feed more of an “we as and ART need to ensure the highest value” mentality rather than our team is going to focus on our highest value objective.
But if morale is low and/or there is low trust and not good ground for this. You might consider having all teams get a 10 while you work on the other issues of the ART.
Sometimes, a feature aligns perfectly with an objective, but it’s not a strict rule. A feature might be divided among a couple of teams, and each team writes objectives related to that same feature. Alternatively, there could be multiple features tied to a single objective. To keep things clear, teams can add a note on the side of their objective to specify which features it relates to. This way, it helps everyone understand how objectives and features connect.
Uncomitted Pi objectives are work that is planned and are not extra work that the team think that they might have time to do. But if there are factors outside the team’s control that leads the team to believe that it’s not likely that they will be able to achieve this objective during this timeframe the team can have the objective as uncommitted. This will help build trust and transparency with stakeholders. Examples of when Objectives have been uncommitted is when teams have very little experience with the functionality before or dependencies outside of the ART that could not be guaranteed.
PI Objectives are team-crafted goals outlining intentions for the upcoming Planning Interval (PI). Business owners assign their perceived business value on a relative scale 1-10 on each objective. The act of assigning business value will most times spark dialogues between team and business owner that helps create clarity and alignment.
