PI Planning is not Sprint Planning at scale
PI Planning is a cadence-based event for the entire ART that aligns teams and stakeholders to a shared mission and vision. Its output is a set of PI Objectives, which are either committed or uncommitted.
Why it is like this
The expensive problem at scale is not deciding what one team does next — it is surfacing dependencies and disagreements between teams while they can still be resolved. Putting everyone in one place for it is the whole bet, and the main reason SAFe is accused of being heavyweight.
Not to be confused with
A scaled-up Sprint Planning. Sprint Planning is one team deciding its own work; PI Planning is dozens of teams negotiating across each other with business stakeholders present. The committed/uncommitted split is also not a Scrum idea at all: uncommitted objectives are deliberately excluded from the commitment so that stretch work does not become an implied promise.
In practice
Uncommitted objectives are the most misused part. They exist to make forecasting honest, not to give the train a second, quieter backlog.
Source: SAFe Glossary (Scaled Agile, Inc.) — PI Planning, PI Objectives. Read on .
SAFe® and Scaled Agile Framework® are registered trade marks of Scaled Agile, Inc. ytyk.org is not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by Scaled Agile, Inc. These cards are independent commentary written in our own words; no SAFe text, graphic or Big Picture is reproduced here.
Odd one out Check yourself
Three of these are true of PI Planning. Which one is not?
Show the answer
It replaces each team's own iteration planning for the interval
Teams still plan their own iterations. PI Planning sets direction and surfaces dependencies across the train; it does not do the teams' planning for them.