6 ms·

I just entered a week of what is called PI planning in SAFe. What the fuck is going on in the world of software delivery. 100 people has to spend 4 days plani

I just entered a week of what is called PI planning in SAFe. What the fuck is going on in the world of software delivery. 100 people has to spend 4 days planing 3 months ahead based on headlines from the business. I have in my 22 years of professional experience never ever tried anything so shocking. Fire me. Please

hiyer 4y ago
At a FAANG company, my manager once made me sit in a 3 hour meeting on a Sunday to plan for projects that weren't even going to start for another 6 months. I quit soon after.
aunlead 4y ago
Just went through our PI planning last week. For those who have experienced it - I feel your pain!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rglullis 4y ago
How is this different from quarterly OKR planning and KPI reporting?
junga 4y ago
I managed to survive three rounds of PI Planning before going nuts. Wasn't the only reason to leave that company but surely a big pain point.
RealityVoid 4y ago
At least enjoy the free food and drinks! SAFe is bonkers. Let me guess the field... Automotive?
- danielovichdk 4y ago
  Green energy. Windmill software
fmakunbound 4y ago
Christ what is PI planning? We're doing something "OKR" meeting related which I have neither the interest nor time to look up the un-abbreviation. Luckily one can Zoom with sound and video off at least...
- serial_dev 4y ago
  Yes! One of the greatest advantages of the "Zoom" age (well technically it is Teams for me) is that when there is a big meeting with 10+ attendees that you find completely useless, you can just silently turn off your video, and do something else: clean your room, do the dishes, have a short workout, wait for the meeting to be over while laying on the bed, do some work that you find meaningful, or browse job postings. If the meeting was in person, I could do none of that, and I'd have an awkward chat with my boss about why I seemed disinterested at the meeting.
  - danielovichdk 4y ago
    Yes I also just hanged out at home and let the leaders in the team do the talking. Because the proces is so broken here, they don't just talk objectives, they talk super details which is totally useless for people that don't have the same domain knowledge. And close to nothing is written down, so people will not know what to do when they are done debating. It's out of this world crazy. Didn't think I would ever experience such a wild process
  - jrs235 4y ago
    This is why work/life balance and mental health improved for remote workers. While remote workers were disengaged during those meetings, they at least felt somewhat productive and had a way to cope. When they are all forced back into the office and can't escape these fiascos their mental health will nose dive and the great resignation will continue until employers "figure it out".
- pavon 4y ago
  In Scrum you have Sprints (~weeks) and Releases (~months), and at the start of each you meet to plan User Stories and Features, respectively, that you want to accomplish during those time frames. SAFe is a formalized version of Scrum of Scrums (multiple Scrum teams working together) and PI (Programatic Increment) is just another name for Release. So PI planning is release planning, but all the scrum teams have to coordinate dependencies (team A needs to complete story X in sprint 2, so team B can use it to complete story Y in sprint 3; teams B and C need to allocate time to design an interface in sprint 1 that they both use in sprint 2, etc), so it has more overhead. Ours started out taking three full days, and we eventually pruned them down to two full days which was still painful, but mostly productive. I can't imagine four whole days - day 5 would have to be dedicated to drinking.
dkarl 4y ago
Oh god.... SAFe is the opposite of agile, and PI planning is for people who don't understand the truth in "plans are useless, planning is essential." It's days and days of planning whose value depends on everything happening exactly as planned. And then, every quarter, reality diverges from the plans, meaning 90% of the PI planning was useless, and people insist on hours of meetings about how to do PI differently so that next time planning will match reality. Rinse and repeat. And people use the failure of PI planning as an excuse for everything being stressful and chaotic. SAFe is the methodology of choice if you want your organization to work smoothly for the first few weeks of a planning increment and then become progressively more dysfunctional as people freak out and/or give up because it no longer makes sense to do exactly what the plan says. Exactly the opposite of agile.
- ruh-roh 4y ago
  I am probably 95% in line with this, SAFe is mostly terrible, but there are some nuggets in there that I think are good. Mostly around the cadence and checkpoints on progress in delivery. (Yes, we can argue whether some of these things originated with SAFe, but it's how I was originally exposed, so that's how my mental model is mapped.) - Quarters (every 12 weeks): Big ticket things that should move the business forward. This requires Engineering participation because items like technical debt, system re-architectures, pipeline improvements, etc. should be on the table. - PI (every 3-4 weeks): Light checkin on progress to current items. A ballpark estimate on what can be delivered in the upcoming PI given the current constraints (capacity, quality, etc.). This works out to 3-4 checkpoints per quarter. - Sprint (every 1-2 weeks): Real commitments to tangible requirements are made here. If thorough discovery leads to changes to the ballpark estimates or development is delayed for other reasons, it is communicated at the PI checkpoint and forecasts can be adjusted. (imo) SAFe is just a solution to problems that may or may not actually exist - eager-beaver middle management-types adopt it chiefly because they think it makes them look good, but also because Product/Engineering teams don't commit-escalate-communicate well. I encourage folks to take a step back and ignore the specific SAFe guidance, but do consider the value of the inputs & outcomes.
  - dkarl 4y ago
schmookeeg 4y ago
Lol. Sony? Nowhere else on my CV has come close for "the work of work" taking all my time, and only incidentally writing a line of code in between plannings and meetings and SAFe rituals.
moistly 4y ago
Damn, that is expensive. 100 ppl x 8hrs x 4d x $150/hr = $480000. A half-million dollars to plan the next 3 months… and that’s assuming those were relatively low-paid people ($100/hr x 50% overhead costs).
- vesinisa 4y ago
  It really speaks volumes to how gullible the high level managers who buy into SAFe are - and how good the SAFe consultants are at selling their "method". These people have probably ran the numbers and still somehow believe the investment is worth it in increased efficiency. Little do they know all the useless planning is probably just hurting them more than helping - the investment has negative value even before subtracting the cost of tied up employee resources. Madness!
vesinisa 4y ago
SAFe is completely insane. I feel sorry for you. I actually left my previous employer because they adopted SAFe and it essentially made working there as a developer impossible. I wrote some of my thoughts here on HN the week after I had resigned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351881 Looking back now, the brutal destruction of our self-organized team had a negative effect on my mental wellbeing, and I have been happy with the decision that I left (eventhough it was painful leaving so many long-time colleagues behind.) These days I do similar work as a contractor for a different company. BTW in that thread I predicted that the company would abandon SAFe within two years. My old colleagues have told me that by the end of 2021, the actual software development teams were "relieved" of the SAFe process, and apparently went back to their normal more or less self-organized working methods as before. SAFe is now only apparently a tool that the middle managers use to plan their high-level work (LOL). SAFe lasted about 1.5 years total with the company going "all-in" and investing big time in trainings etc. Probably they would have abandoned SAFe altogether by now but in the "transition" they hired a good roster of SAFe specialists, so I guess they have to keep at least some form of SAFe process going on to not hurt anyone's feelings / lose face on the investment (although the specific C-level whose initiative SAFe was "moved on" already before.) Lots of the SAFe "specialists" have also moved on - most of them back to selling the same snake oil as management consultants to other firms.
stunt 4y ago
I always ask interviewer to see if they use SAFe or not. If they use SAFe, they just don't get it and it means that wrong people are making important decisions in the org.
blindmute 4y ago
We had to do that exact thing in Boeing some years ago. It's an absurd waste of time.

hiyer 4y ago

At a FAANG company, my manager once made me sit in a 3 hour meeting on a Sunday to plan for projects that weren't even going to start for another 6 months. I quit soon after.

aunlead 4y ago

Just went through our PI planning last week. For those who have experienced it - I feel your pain!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rglullis 4y ago

How is this different from quarterly OKR planning and KPI reporting?

junga 4y ago

I managed to survive three rounds of PI Planning before going nuts. Wasn't the only reason to leave that company but surely a big pain point.

RealityVoid 4y ago

At least enjoy the free food and drinks! SAFe is bonkers. Let me guess the field... Automotive?

danielovichdk 4y ago
Green energy. Windmill software

fmakunbound 4y ago

Christ what is PI planning? We're doing something "OKR" meeting related which I have neither the interest nor time to look up the un-abbreviation. Luckily one can Zoom with sound and video off at least...

serial_dev 4y ago
Yes! One of the greatest advantages of the "Zoom" age (well technically it is Teams for me) is that when there is a big meeting with 10+ attendees that you find completely useless, you can just silently turn off your video, and do something else: clean your room, do the dishes, have a short workout, wait for the meeting to be over while laying on the bed, do some work that you find meaningful, or browse job postings. If the meeting was in person, I could do none of that, and I'd have an awkward chat with my boss about why I seemed disinterested at the meeting.
- danielovichdk 4y ago
  Yes I also just hanged out at home and let the leaders in the team do the talking. Because the proces is so broken here, they don't just talk objectives, they talk super details which is totally useless for people that don't have the same domain knowledge. And close to nothing is written down, so people will not know what to do when they are done debating. It's out of this world crazy. Didn't think I would ever experience such a wild process
- jrs235 4y ago
  This is why work/life balance and mental health improved for remote workers. While remote workers were disengaged during those meetings, they at least felt somewhat productive and had a way to cope. When they are all forced back into the office and can't escape these fiascos their mental health will nose dive and the great resignation will continue until employers "figure it out".
pavon 4y ago
In Scrum you have Sprints (~weeks) and Releases (~months), and at the start of each you meet to plan User Stories and Features, respectively, that you want to accomplish during those time frames. SAFe is a formalized version of Scrum of Scrums (multiple Scrum teams working together) and PI (Programatic Increment) is just another name for Release. So PI planning is release planning, but all the scrum teams have to coordinate dependencies (team A needs to complete story X in sprint 2, so team B can use it to complete story Y in sprint 3; teams B and C need to allocate time to design an interface in sprint 1 that they both use in sprint 2, etc), so it has more overhead. Ours started out taking three full days, and we eventually pruned them down to two full days which was still painful, but mostly productive. I can't imagine four whole days - day 5 would have to be dedicated to drinking.

dkarl 4y ago

Oh god.... SAFe is the opposite of agile, and PI planning is for people who don't understand the truth in "plans are useless, planning is essential." It's days and days of planning whose value depends on everything happening exactly as planned. And then, every quarter, reality diverges from the plans, meaning 90% of the PI planning was useless, and people insist on hours of meetings about how to do PI differently so that next time planning will match reality. Rinse and repeat. And people use the failure of PI planning as an excuse for everything being stressful and chaotic. SAFe is the methodology of choice if you want your organization to work smoothly for the first few weeks of a planning increment and then become progressively more dysfunctional as people freak out and/or give up because it no longer makes sense to do exactly what the plan says. Exactly the opposite of agile.

ruh-roh 4y ago
I am probably 95% in line with this, SAFe is mostly terrible, but there are some nuggets in there that I think are good. Mostly around the cadence and checkpoints on progress in delivery. (Yes, we can argue whether some of these things originated with SAFe, but it's how I was originally exposed, so that's how my mental model is mapped.) - Quarters (every 12 weeks): Big ticket things that should move the business forward. This requires Engineering participation because items like technical debt, system re-architectures, pipeline improvements, etc. should be on the table. - PI (every 3-4 weeks): Light checkin on progress to current items. A ballpark estimate on what can be delivered in the upcoming PI given the current constraints (capacity, quality, etc.). This works out to 3-4 checkpoints per quarter. - Sprint (every 1-2 weeks): Real commitments to tangible requirements are made here. If thorough discovery leads to changes to the ballpark estimates or development is delayed for other reasons, it is communicated at the PI checkpoint and forecasts can be adjusted. (imo) SAFe is just a solution to problems that may or may not actually exist - eager-beaver middle management-types adopt it chiefly because they think it makes them look good, but also because Product/Engineering teams don't commit-escalate-communicate well. I encourage folks to take a step back and ignore the specific SAFe guidance, but do consider the value of the inputs & outcomes.
- dkarl 4y ago

schmookeeg 4y ago

Lol. Sony? Nowhere else on my CV has come close for "the work of work" taking all my time, and only incidentally writing a line of code in between plannings and meetings and SAFe rituals.

moistly 4y ago

Damn, that is expensive. 100 ppl x 8hrs x 4d x $150/hr = $480000. A half-million dollars to plan the next 3 months… and that’s assuming those were relatively low-paid people ($100/hr x 50% overhead costs).

vesinisa 4y ago
It really speaks volumes to how gullible the high level managers who buy into SAFe are - and how good the SAFe consultants are at selling their "method". These people have probably ran the numbers and still somehow believe the investment is worth it in increased efficiency. Little do they know all the useless planning is probably just hurting them more than helping - the investment has negative value even before subtracting the cost of tied up employee resources. Madness!

vesinisa 4y ago

SAFe is completely insane. I feel sorry for you. I actually left my previous employer because they adopted SAFe and it essentially made working there as a developer impossible. I wrote some of my thoughts here on HN the week after I had resigned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26351881 Looking back now, the brutal destruction of our self-organized team had a negative effect on my mental wellbeing, and I have been happy with the decision that I left (eventhough it was painful leaving so many long-time colleagues behind.) These days I do similar work as a contractor for a different company. BTW in that thread I predicted that the company would abandon SAFe within two years. My old colleagues have told me that by the end of 2021, the actual software development teams were "relieved" of the SAFe process, and apparently went back to their normal more or less self-organized working methods as before. SAFe is now only apparently a tool that the middle managers use to plan their high-level work (LOL). SAFe lasted about 1.5 years total with the company going "all-in" and investing big time in trainings etc. Probably they would have abandoned SAFe altogether by now but in the "transition" they hired a good roster of SAFe specialists, so I guess they have to keep at least some form of SAFe process going on to not hurt anyone's feelings / lose face on the investment (although the specific C-level whose initiative SAFe was "moved on" already before.) Lots of the SAFe "specialists" have also moved on - most of them back to selling the same snake oil as management consultants to other firms.

stunt 4y ago

I always ask interviewer to see if they use SAFe or not. If they use SAFe, they just don't get it and it means that wrong people are making important decisions in the org.

blindmute 4y ago

We had to do that exact thing in Boeing some years ago. It's an absurd waste of time.