Manage PI planning in the program room

Standard
Enterprise

Manage the entire PI planning and execution workflow through the Program Room—one central command center.

You can view work related to a certain team within the selected program to focus on one team in particular, or display the work for the entire program. To view work related to a team, click the team's icon in the top-right of the page, to the left of the Program View button. To display work for the entire program, click the Program View button.

When in the Program View, you will also see the number of features, stories, and story points loaded into your program increment. In the Team View, you will see how many stories and total story points are associated with the selected team.

Customize your Program Room

The View Configuration button in the upper right corner of the page opens a modal that allows you to show/hide various widgets from the program. Once enabled, you can further customize the view by dragging and dropping widgets around the page. Widgets include:

Progress

Displays program increment (PI) statistics. From the program view, it displays the remaining PI time (excluding weekends), completion percentage of objectives, ratio and percentage of accepted stories, epics, capabilities, features, and completed dependencies. From the team view, it displays the percentage of accepted stories, completed dependencies, and closed defects for the team's PI.

Actions

Lists both open and closed action items for the current PI within a specific program.

Chat

A space for discussions related to any work item involved in the PI.

Dependencies

Tracks dependencies in which the program is a Requesting or a Depends On program, as well as dependencies between the program’s various teams.

Impediments

Lists impediments blocking team progress in the PI.

Objectives

Lists the objectives set for the PI at the planning meeting.

Program increment load

Represents the total volume of work planned for a program increment (PI).

In release 10.130, we introduced some logic and visual changes to the program increment load widget, which you can toggle on/off for the next few months. 

Old version New version

The program increments load widget calculates the estimated load (default view) and actual load based on velocity, and allows you to toggle between the two views using the gear icon.

  • Estimated load (based on feature points) is calculated as (total number of feature points loaded in the selected PI for the selected program) / (velocity) * 100 = % load.
  • Actual load (based on story points) is calculated as (total number of story points loaded in the selected PI for the selected program) / (velocity) * 100 = % load.

Note: Velocity is the average number of total story points delivered by the program over the previous two PIs. You can manually override velocity, which will impact the selected PI or program velocity’s across Jira Align.

The new forecast versus capacity widget (described below) replaces the estimated load view and updates the actual load view with a new calculation.

  • The new actual load calculation is based on more data from the capacity and forecasting features, and therefore doesn’t require manual overrides. In this version, actual load is calculation as program story points loaded ÷ program available capacity.

Note: Program points loaded = sum of effort points estimated from all stories associated with the program and program increment. Points will be counted from all stories associated with the PI, regardless of sprint assignment

Release Vehicle

Includes all release vehicles with work assigned to the PI (even if release vehicle dates are outside of the PI) and linked through a contributing program.

Risks

All risks assigned to the selected PI for the program.

Team Load

Represents the team’s work planned for a program increment (PI).

In release 10.130, we introduced some logic and visual changes to the team load widget, which you can toggle on/off for the next few months. 

Old version New version

The old team load widget calculates each team's load versus capacity percentage as: (program increment load / program increment capacity) * 100. 

  • Program increment (PI) load: Sum of effort points from team stories planned for the PI, including stories not assigned to a specific sprint. Stories planned for sprint outside the PI are excluded.
    • PI capacity: Sum of team velocities for each sprint in the program increment, using average team velocity, accepted points, or override velocity depending on
    • Average team velocity: The average number of accepted story points from the last five completed sprints. This value is used when a sprint hasn't started and no override velocity is present.
    • Accepted points: Number of story points in the sprint. This value is used when a sprint in the program increment has been completed.
    • Override velocity: Override value entered for a sprint, useful for anticipating reduced team capacity, increased headcount, or new sprints in the program. This value is used when a sprint hasn't started with an override present.
  • Click a row to open the team’s Details panel, focused on the Sprints tab. There you can review current and past sprints, along with planned, accepted, and override velocity values. The percentage of load vs capacity in the card will change as the PI progresses, as the team's Program Increment Capacity and Average Team Velocity values will update after the completion of each sprint.
  • The updated team load widget streamlines the logic for both agile and kanban teams using team-level capacity data, and calculated team load as team story points loaded ÷ team available capacity.
  • Note: stories must be assigned to the team for the points to be counted.

Program Increments Planning Checklist

A configurable list of steps to complete before the PI.

Team Progress

Lists all teams contributing to the PI within the selected program. Calculates team PI velocity as the product of average velocity and the number of synced sprints, with progress shown as a percentage of points accepted versus total PI velocity.

  • Team PI velocity = (team’s average velocity) * (number of synced sprints in the PI)
  • % progress = (total number of points accepted by the team within the PI, including stories not loaded in a sprint) / (team PI velocity) * 100

Runway

Displays runway for goals for epics, features, and stories, and allows you to compare the amount of time needed to complete the work you haven't started. Select the gear icon to manage runway goals and percent deviation. Learn more about runway calculations in the Working in the Program Room document.

Forecast versus capacity

In release 10.130, we introduced the forecast versus capacity widget to replace the program increment load estimate view (described above). You can toggle on/off for the next few months. 

Compares a program and its teams' forecasted epics, features, or capabilities against available capacity for a single program increment.

  • Measures effort in points or member weeks depending on your estimation system.
  • Uses a simple calculation based on data from the capacity and forecasting features: Forecasted effort for epics, capabilities, or features at the program and team levels ÷ program/team capacity.

Check the key metrics

  • Program Increment Burndown and Burnup: A burndown chart represents work remaining versus time. A burnup chart shows how much work has been completed as well as the total amount of work. 
  • Points Accepted (by Sprint): The Points Accepted (by Sprint) report shows the overall velocity by the LOE points completed for the teams participating in the PI.
  • PI Defect Trend: The PI Defect Trend report displays daily counts of active, high, critical, opened, and closed defects for a selected sprint within a PI.

Run a Meeting

Click the Run a Meeting button and select from the following options:

  • Grooming: conduct a meeting to plan the PI and refine the backlog.
  • Scrum of Scrums: conduct a meeting to scale Scrum to large project teams; teams discuss their work, areas of overlap, and integration.

Commit and start a PI

When the selected program increment is not complete or in progress, you will see the Commit and Start button on the toolbar. If the user selects Yes, then the PI status changes to In Progress and the Program Room switches to the execute mode. After the PI ends, you can close it by clicking the Close Program Increment button.

See also

Working in the Program Room

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