Piplanning.io is an innovative AI-powered platform designed to help teams simplify and streamline their Program Increment (PI) planning process.
As organizations scale Agile, effectively planning and managing PIs across multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs) introduces significant complexity. Piplanning.io aims to eliminate that complexity.
In this 2024 review, we’ll take an in-depth look at Piplanning.io’s features and capabilities, pricing plans, pros and cons, tips for getting started, top alternatives, and address some frequently asked questions. Let’s dive in!
What is Piplanning.io?
Piplanning.io is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that enables teams to plan and execute their PI in a single place. The tool provides real-time status updates and effortless synchronization across various systems like Jira, Rally, and Azure DevOps.
Specifically, Piplanning.io helps teams:
- Visualize dependencies across trains, teams, and features
- Understand capacity across iterations
- Identify and resolve constraints/risks
- Track progress during PI execution
- Optimize planning with AI capabilities
The platform aims to simplify PI planning complexity, especially in fast-scaling environments with distributed teams. It’s designed to plan multiple ARTs and thousands of teams at once.
How Piplanning.io Works
Piplanning.io connects directly to your team’s existing tools like Jira or Azure DevOps. It ingests your backlogs, teams, dependencies, and other metadata.
From there, Piplanning.io provides specialized boards that allow you to plan capacity across teams and visualize deliverables across ARTs. The boards provide insights into teams, features, dependencies, risks, and progress.
As new inputs come in throughout the PI execution, Piplanning.io remains continuously up-to-date. This means you always have full visibility and can course correct quickly.
Piplanning.io’s AI capabilities also provide personalized recommendations to help optimize planning. The system learns from historical data to improve future PI planning cycles.
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Features of Piplanning.io
Visualization Tools Provide Enhanced Transparency: Piplanning.io comes equipped with a suite of visualization tools aimed at giving users increased transparency around capacity planning and work tracking.
The platform offers interactive dashboards and customizable boards that managers can leverage to build visibility into team capacity levels, product plans mapped to sprints, dependency conflicts, and more. For leadership, Epic Roadmaps deliver a high-level view of product launch timelines across trains.
Release Train Schedules also allow users to visually map deliverables across multiple Agile teams and sprints in a single view to uncover scheduling issues. Risk heat maps make it easy to spot uncertainties and dependencies that could put delivery at risk.
Flexible Views and Filters: These boards and charts can be filtered and organized to fit different planning needs. Piplanning.io offers easy toggle views – from portfolio to train to team levels – along with built-in filters and tagging so users can slice and dice data. Managers can also create custom templates and perspectives to align with program parameters.
Smooth Backlog and Team Data Import: To optimize planning cycles, Piplanning.io ingests backlog data and teams from existing Agile tools like Jira, Rally, and Azure DevOps with just a few clicks. This allows it to automate ingestion rather than requiring tedious manual data entry.
Dependency Mapping Across Plans: Once the data is imported, Piplanning.io auto-detects dependencies across portfolios – surfacing connections between plans, schedules, and teams that might have been siloed before. This insight is crucial for leadership to sequence deliverables and staff appropriately.
Scenario Modeling and Stakeholder Alignment: From there, the platform makes it easy for users to model resourcing plans across sprints and ARTs, adjusting for what-if situations to settle on an optimal path given constraints. Collaboration with key stakeholders is also built-in so groups can align on plans.
Real-Time Tracking and AI-Powered Recommendations: Piplanning.io doesn’t just enable smooth planning. Once execution begins, it provides users transparency into real-time progress so they can course correct quickly.
The system surfaces a range of AI-recommended optimizations – from rebalancing staff or de-risking timeframes when anomalies are detected to improving estimates leveraging historical data. This keeps teams on an efficient path to drive outcomes.
How Much Does Piplanning.io Cost?
Piplanning.io offers a free 14-day trial so you can test out the platform at no cost.
After the trial period, Piplanning.io has three paid tiers:
| Plan | Price | Capacity | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $29/month | Up to 5 teams | For small organizations to visualize dependencies and plans |
| Pro | $99/month | Up to 20 teams | Adds capacity planning, progress tracking, AI recommendations |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | 100+ teams | For large enterprises managing many ARTs, with dedicated support |
Volume discounts are available on annual contracts. Enterprise pricing is custom quoted based on your organization’s specific needs.
Piplanning.io supports common payment methods like credit card, PayPal, wire transfer, and crypto.
Pros and Cons of Piplanning.io
Here is an overview of some of the key advantages and potential limitations when using Piplanning.io:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Eliminates PI planning complexity for large, distributed teams | Can have a learning curve to onboard the tool |
| Visualizes dependencies across multiple Agile teams/ARTs | Limited functionality for the Basic plan |
| Real-time status updates | |
| Effortless sync with existing tools | |
| Models different what-if scenarios | |
| AI optimization and forecasting | |
| 14-day free trial |
How to Use Piplanning.io: Complete Overview
Getting started with Piplanning.io is straightforward:
- 1. Sign up for a free Piplanning.io account.
- 2. Connect data sources like Jira or Azure DevOps so Piplanning.io can ingest your backlogs.
- 3. Configure boards to meet your planning needs across ARTs, trains, and teams. Add any dependencies across deliverables.
- 4. Review auto-generated plan showing capacity across iterations. Make edits as needed.
- 5. Track progress during PI execute using aggregated data and AI-powered alerts.
- 6. Evaluate results post-PI to identify what worked well (or not) to improve next planning cycle.
Piplanning.io provides walkthroughs, training videos, docs, and customer support if you have any questions setting up and utilizing the platform.
Take advantage of the 14-day trial to validate that Piplanning.io can successfully support your PI planning process before committing to a paid plan.
Piplanning.io Alternatives
Piplanning.io isn’t the only enterprise Agile planning platform available. Here are some top alternatives along with a high-level comparison:
| Tool | Best For | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planview | Large enterprises | Full ALM capabilities | Steep learning curve |
| CA Agile Central | Established Agile teams | Templates and best practices | Costly |
| VersionOne | Scaled frameworks like SAFe | Custom workflows | Complex UI |
| Jira Align | Jira users | Tight Jira integration | Lightweight features |
Evaluate your team’s specific needs to determine if Piplanning.io or another alternative makes the best sense as your program increment planning platform.
Conclusion: Piplanning.io Review
Piplanning.io is an extremely capable platform that can help streamline one of the most complex parts of scaling Agile – effectively planning and managing program increments across trains and teams.
With features like customizable boards, real-time tracking, AI recommendations, and robust visualization of dependencies, Piplanning.io eliminates many PI planning headaches. It enables distributed teams to understand capacity, identify risks ahead of time, and optimize planning.
If your organization is struggling to scale PI planning or lacks visibility into execution, Piplanning.io warrants strong consideration. The 14-day free trial makes it easy to validate the benefits in your own environment.
For large enterprises committed to scaled Agile frameworks like SAFe, Piplanning.io can be a valuable investment to enable business agility.
FAQs: Piplanning.io
What is the pricing for Piplanning.io?
Piplanning.io offers a free 14-day trial. Paid plans start at $29/month for up to 5 teams. Enterprise pricing is custom quoted.
What Agile tools does Piplanning.io integrate with?
It connects to Jira, Azure DevOps, and Rally out of the box. There is also an API for other custom integrations.
Can I manage multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs) with Piplanning.io?
Yes, Piplanning.io is designed specifically for environments scaling Agile across multiple trains and teams distributed across locations.
Does Piplanning.io support SAFe?
Absolutely. The tool provides all the visibility and coordination you need to plan and manage successful program increments in an SAFe implementation.
Is there a way to try Piplanning.io for free?
Piplanning.io offers full platform access for 14 days through its free trial. Sign up on the website to evaluate it firsthand.