Big Room Playing > Big Room Planning
Confession: A Sceptic’s View on Big Room Planning
Even before the pandemic reshaped our work environments, I harbored skepticism about the efficacy of “Big Room Planning.” Having both participated in and organized several such events, I found the energy and excitement palpable, yet the planning itself often felt chaotic. As sticky notes peeled off walls and exhausted PMO members scrambled to replace them, I couldn’t help but calculate the absurd cost per sticky note. The thought of losing even one felt faintly horrendous given the investment. Training sessions often prescribed lengthy agendas filled with night-long deliberations that seemed more exhausting than productive.
When lockdowns began, there was a frantic rush to transition these “PI Planning” events to remote formats. Impressively, many organizations achieved slick virtual setups in days. Over months and years, tools improved, yet the number of events dwindled. Has Big Room Planning become obsolete? Let’s explore some patterns and insights that suggest a shift from planning to playing might be more beneficial.
Why Are We Doing This Again?
Asking “Why are we doing Big Room Planning?” is a healthy exercise for any team. The answer “Because the framework we adopted says to” isn’t a great one in my view -Here are some common justifications I encounter… and why they might warrant reevaluation:
“To plan dependencies between teams.”
- Why can’t this be done on a more frequent cadence? If dependencies are critical, they should be managed continuously, not quarterly… and does your quantify of dependencies indicate something going wrong? If team shape and technology are invested in, those pieces of string should start to dwindle… see https://teamtopologies.com/ for some awesomeness in this regard
“So our teams can understand business/leadership priorities.”
- Why is this engagement not happening regularly? Teams should be consistently aligned with business goals, not just during a planning event. The Product cycle in Scrum@Scale, and OKRs more generally are favourite resources for me on this topic.
“Because it’s great to get everyone together physically.”
- Now, THIS has merit. Physical gatherings foster human connection, which is essential for effective collaboration. Let’s explore this topic further and embrace…
Less Planning, More Togetherness
Embracing Human Connection
The richness of human connection is invaluable. Special physical meetings allow teams to embrace this richness and build/rebuild bonds necessary for effective collaboration throughout the year. Techniques that explore play and social connection — rather than thousands of sticky notes — are more meaningful in fostering team spirit. Engaging in activities that encourage play and social interaction can significantly enhance team dynamics and productivity. Consider which team members to move if you are split over multiple locations — shipping your Product Owner TO the offshore team regularly for example can be a great way to drive connection.
Healthier Reflection on Objectives
Whether remote or physical, it is crucial to give teams the opportunity to reflect on wider objectives and outcomes. This reflection is healthy and necessary for maintaining alignment and motivation. When teams understand the broader goals, they are better equipped to contribute effectively to the organization’s success. In Big Room Planning this is called for in most agendas, but in my experience it sadly often gets squashed into a side item: Busy executives aren’t pushed to prepare properly and the weight of logistical emphasis is placed on the team activities, meaning they can skirt over wider views with a slide full of text and a brief ‘keynote’.
Effective Processes Over Planning
For organizations operating on a quarterly or similar cadence, processes and ways of working should be effective enough that any ‘planning’ session becomes more of a review of the current snapshot of the future. If a planning event is the first time teams are learning about dependencies or upcoming work, there is likely a breakdown in the system. Continuous communication and alignment should ensure that teams are always aware of their responsibilities and the overall direction.
Tools like Atlassian Jira and Jira Align, together with apps like Easy Agile Team Rhythm can really help with making this process visual and engaging
I particularly enjoyed hearing about team practices of “little room planning” from Ali and Aneesha — two amazing agilists I was lucky to work with in the UK. In these approaches rather than assuming 100+ people needed to be brought together at once to plan, the focus was instead shifted onto ‘just enough’ to achieve the level of coordination required, and an emphasis on Minimum Viable Beauracracy.
Descaling Work and Daily Effectiveness
Rather than focusing on large, hierarchical chunks of work, organizations should aim to descale and prioritize the daily effectiveness of teams. This involves aligning teams around outcomes and goals, ensuring they have the autonomy to make decisions and adapt as needed. Daily effectiveness guided by clear objectives creates a more agile and responsive organization. The case studies around Scrum@Scale, and in particular Joe Justice’s presentation and Saab’s Gripen program are particularly inspiring for how to do this right.
So what — Just ditch it?
Getting people together is a great idea — but with the enhanced potential of collaboration now at our grasps doing so to make a plan doesn’t feel like the smart use of time to me. Instead I see goodness in focussing on the following:
- Get people together to play and the planning (or perhaps even better, doing) can follow. Take the money your organisation would spend on the time to prepare and deliver large planning and channel it into co-locating as many of your team as possible to create experiences they will bond and learn about each other from. Do LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, take a hike somewhere epic, stage an improv musical. Relationships formed during these activities will power your ability to deliver despite surprises.
- Descale your planning. Consider the challenges you were hoping to tackle with having lots of people make a plan together, and question how best to treat these early and often. A really amazing plan is rarely the answer, and let’s face it — in most planning meetings you’re lucky if 20% of the people sat round the (physical or virtual) table are really engaged all the time. Instead focus on
- Be realistic in your expectations of remote. Depending on your audience and how pessimistic a body of research your source from, you should probably count on 10–20 minutes being the longest you can expect before your colleagues mind wander. Focus on breaking up the items you DO think are worth covering into small contained sessions, and consider if they way you are delivering the content prompts the kind of engagement you actually want. I find Sharon Bowman’s Six Trumps neatly translated well from learning directly into this. Despite this being common experience for most humans I know, organisations nevertheless tend to earnestly default to “a senior person or extrovert talking AT the room for an extended period, often with text heavy slides” as the primary method of delivering information.
