Quarterly planning in 60 seconds
- What it is: a recurring event, usually two days, where all teams plan the next quarter together.
- Also called: big room planning, or PI Planning in SAFe.
- Cost: two days a quarter is about 3.3% of people's working time.[1]
- Why a quarter: it matches the most popular OKR cycle[2] and SAFe's 8 to 12 week Planning Interval.[3]
- Outputs: committed objectives per team, a cross-team plan with dependencies, and a list of risks with owners.
What is quarterly planning?
Quarterly planning is a cadence-based event in which all the teams working on a product or portfolio plan the coming quarter together. They agree priorities, plan their work, surface dependencies between teams and commit to a set of objectives.
The practice goes by several names. A widely used definition comes from practitioner Ole Jepsen: "Big room planning is two days of planning together with all program and team members every quarter."[1] In the Scaled Agile Framework the same event is called PI Planning.
What makes it different from a management offsite is who does the planning. Leaders bring context and priorities. The teams make the plan. That is why the commitments that come out of it tend to hold.
Why plan in quarters?
A quarter is long enough to deliver something meaningful and short enough to forecast with some confidence. It also lines up with how most organisations set goals and report results.
- OKRs. "The most popular OKR cadence is quarterly. That gives you four cycles to achieve your annual North Star OKRs."[2] Google "sets annual and quarterly OKRs and holds company-wide meetings quarterly to share and grade OKRs."[4]
- SAFe. A Planning Interval is 8 to 12 weeks[3], and the Strategic Portfolio Review is "typically held on a quarterly cadence."[5]
- Business rhythm. Budgets, reporting and customer commitments already run in quarters.
A quarter is not the only option. Basecamp's Shape Up method works in six-week cycles, on the reasoning that six weeks "is long enough to build something meaningful start-to-finish and short enough that everyone can feel the deadline looming", followed by a two-week cool-down.[6][7] OKR cycles of six weeks, a month or six months are all in use.[2] Pick the length that fits how fast your market changes, then keep it fixed.
Is big room planning the same as PI Planning?
Nearly. PI Planning is the SAFe-defined version, with specific roles, outputs and an agenda. Big room planning is the general practice, used by organisations that want the event without adopting the framework. Jepsen describes his agenda as "inspired by, but not identical to, the SAFe PI Planning suggested agenda."[1]
| Big room planning | PI Planning (SAFe) | |
|---|---|---|
| Defined by | Practice, no single standard | The Scaled Agile Framework[8] |
| Who plans together | All teams on a product or programme | An Agile Release Train of 50 to 125 people[9] |
| Cadence | Usually quarterly | Every 8 to 12 weeks[8] |
| Facilitator | A programme lead or agile coach | The Release Train Engineer |
| Outputs | Objectives, a cross-team plan, risks | PI Objectives and the ART Planning Board[10] |
| Extras | Chosen by the organisation | Business value scoring, ROAM, confidence vote |
If you are not using SAFe, you can still borrow its three most useful mechanics: objectives written and committed by the teams, risks handled with ROAM, and a confidence vote before you close.
What is a good quarterly planning agenda?
Use two days. Day one sets the context in the morning and gives teams the afternoon to draft plans. Day two finishes the plans, reviews them together, deals with risks and closes with a commitment.
| When | Session | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1, morning | Business context and results of last quarter | Where we are and what changed. |
| Day 1, morning | Priorities and product direction | The top outcomes and features for the quarter. |
| Day 1, morning | Architecture and constraints | Technical direction, fixed dates, known limits. |
| Day 1, afternoon | Team breakouts | Capacity, draft plan, draft objectives, dependencies. |
| Day 1, end | Draft plan review | Each team shows its draft. Leaders note the conflicts. |
| Day 1, evening | Leadership problem solving | Resolve scope and capacity conflicts overnight. |
| Day 2, morning | Adjustments, then team breakouts | Finish plans and objectives. Confirm dependencies. |
| Day 2, midday | Final plan review | Each team presents the plan and objectives. |
| Day 2, afternoon | Risks | Go through cross-team risks and assign owners. |
| Day 2, afternoon | Confidence vote and commitment | Vote. Rework if confidence is low. |
| Day 2, end | Retrospective | What to change next quarter. |
For distributed teams, spread the same sessions over three or four shorter days. The remote planning section of the PI Planning guide has a sample schedule.
What goes in, and what should come out?
The inputs are priorities, a refined backlog, team capacity and known constraints. The outputs are objectives each team commits to, a plan by team and iteration with dependencies agreed, and a list of risks with owners.
How do you connect OKRs to quarterly planning?
Set or refresh OKRs before the planning event, bring them in as the priorities, and have each team write objectives that link to them. During the quarter, track the work against the objectives so progress on an OKR is visible without a separate report.
- Before: leadership agrees company or portfolio OKRs. In SAFe, OKR use is optional "apart from the strong recommendation to use them to describe portfolio Strategic Themes."[11]
- During: each team's objectives say which OKR they serve. An objective that serves none deserves a question.
- After: review at a fixed rhythm. Atlassian's guidance is to "implement OKRs and review them quarterly."[12]
- Scoring: stretch is expected. Google describes "the sweet spot for OKRs" as "somewhere in the 60-70% range."[4]
- Keep them apart from appraisal: "OKRs are not synonymous with employee evaluations."[4]
In Kendis, OKRs and strategic themes link to the objectives and features on the planning board, and quarterly planning and tracking uses the same board through the quarter.
What should be on a quarterly planning checklist?
Confirm the dates and people, prepare the priorities and backlog, calculate capacity, set up the board, and agree how you will track the plan afterwards.
- Dates published at least a quarter ahead, for the whole year if possible.
- Every team, product lead and key stakeholder confirmed for both days.
- Company or portfolio goals for the quarter agreed.
- Top features refined, ranked and shared a week before. WSJF helps with the ranking.
- Capacity per team per iteration, including leave.
- Fixed dates and external commitments listed.
- Last quarter's results and lessons available.
- Planning board set up and tested, with the backlog loaded.
- Rooms or video breakouts for every team.
- A named facilitator, and a way to raise problems during the event.
- The follow-up rhythm agreed: who reviews the plan, and how often.
What are the common traps?
The most common trap is arriving with the plan already made. The others are planning to full capacity, skipping dependencies, writing objectives nobody can score, and never looking at the plan again.
- The plan is pre-made. If teams are only asked to confirm it, they have not committed to anything.
- 100% capacity. Leave room for the unknown. A plan with no slack fails on the first surprise.
- Briefings eat the day. Record them and protect the breakout time.
- Dependencies are assumed. If the providing team has not accepted it, it is not planned. See the dependency guide.
- Objectives are task lists. Write outcomes a stakeholder would recognise.
- No follow-through. Two days of planning are wasted if the plan is not reviewed every week or two.
Put this into practice, free for 6 months
Kendis is a PI Planning and tracking platform that sits on top of Jira and Azure DevOps. The free trial runs for six months, long enough to plan and track two full PIs with your real backlog before anyone has to approve a budget.
- 6 months free, no credit card
- Choose EU hosting (OVHcloud, Frankfurt) or US hosting (AWS)
- Planning board, dependencies, PI objectives, ROAM risks, solution boards
- Two-way sync with Jira Cloud, Jira Data Center and Azure DevOps
- ISO/IEC 27001 certified, GDPR compliant, DORA Schedule available
- No user caps and no setup costs during the trial
One trial per organisation that has not used Kendis in the last twelve months. After the trial, Premium Cloud is $14 per user per month billed annually, or $16 monthly, and you license only the people who plan. SSO, Kendis AI and premium support are part of paid plans. See pricing and the free trial terms.
Quarterly planning: frequently asked questions
What is quarterly planning?
Quarterly planning is a recurring event where all teams working on a product or portfolio plan the coming quarter together, agree priorities, surface dependencies and commit to objectives.
What is big room planning?
Big room planning is two days of planning together with all programme and team members every quarter. It is the general name for the practice that SAFe calls PI Planning.
Is big room planning the same as PI Planning?
They are very close. PI Planning is the version defined by the Scaled Agile Framework, with set roles, outputs and agenda. Big room planning is the same idea used without the framework.
How long should quarterly planning take?
Two days is typical for teams in one place. Distributed teams usually spread the same agenda over three or four shorter days.
Who should attend quarterly planning?
Every team that shares the product or dependencies, their product owners or managers, the people who set priorities, architects, and stakeholders who can make scope decisions on the spot.
How do OKRs fit into quarterly planning?
OKRs are set or refreshed before the event and come in as the priorities. Each team writes objectives that link to an OKR, and the work is tracked against those objectives through the quarter.
Do you have to plan in quarters?
No. Quarterly is the most popular cadence, but six-week, monthly and six-month cycles are all used. What matters is that the cadence is fixed and known in advance.
Sources
Every external claim in this guide links to the primary source below. All links were checked on 12 October 2026.
- InfoQ (Ole Jepsen). Scaling Agile: Big Room Planning (29 January 2018).
- What Matters (John Doerr). The OKR cadence: how to choose the right goal-setting cycle.
- Scaled Agile, Inc.. Planning Interval (PI).
- Google re:Work. Guide: Set goals with OKRs.
- Scaled Agile, Inc.. Lean Portfolio Management Discipline (last updated 31 March 2025).
- Basecamp (Ryan Singer). Shape Up: Introduction.
- Basecamp (Ryan Singer). Shape Up: The Betting Table.
- Scaled Agile, Inc.. PI Planning.
- Scaled Agile, Inc.. Agile Release Train.
- Scaled Agile, Inc.. SAFe Glossary.
- Scaled Agile, Inc.. OKRs (Extended Guidance).
- Atlassian. OKRs: the ultimate guide to objectives and key results.
How this guide is maintained: definitions are checked against the framework pages and other primary sources listed above, and the guide is updated when terminology or guidance changes. Examples, checklists and practical advice are Kendis guidance and are not official SAFe material. SAFe and Scaled Agile Framework are registered trademarks of Scaled Agile, Inc.