Big Room Planning: Resolving Dependencies in Two Days

Big Room Planning resolves dependencies between teams by bringing everyone involved into one room for one or two days to negotiate their dependencies directly with each other. The method replaces weeks of coordination by email and ticket with a conversation in which decision-makers sit at the table. It pays off once waiting time between teams ties up more capacity than the event itself.

This article describes the format, calculates cost and benefit in a worked example and sets out the criteria for when Big Room Planning is worth the effort and which alternatives suffice in smaller set-ups.

What is Big Room Planning?

Big Room Planning is a recurring planning event in which several teams, their product owners and the responsible managers create the plan for the next period together in one room. The idea comes from lean management: Toyota uses the “obeya”, the big room, in which participants make information visible on the walls and take decisions where the work happens. In software delivery the format became known through the Scaled Agile Framework, which calls it PI Planning. There, the teams of a delivery train plan face to face over two days, usually for a period of eight to twelve weeks.

The principle rests on an insight from product development: in his book on the flow of product development (2009), Don Reinertsen describes how long queues and large batches extend lead time more than the work itself. Dependencies between teams are such queues. A request that sits for a week on the official route can often be answered in ten minutes in the room. The mechanisms behind dependencies and the tools available are described in the article on dependencies between teams.

How does Big Room Planning work?

Big Room Planning runs over two days in three phases: alignment on the goal, planning within the teams and reconciliation between the teams. The following outline follows the sequence of the Scaled Agile Framework and transfers to smaller groups.

Two elements make the difference. The first is the dependency board: every dependency becomes a card with a string between two teams, visible until both sides have confirmed their commitment. The second is the confidence vote at the end. Each team shows with its fingers how sure it is of reaching the objective. Low scores lead to a rework of the plan on the spot until the team feels sure enough. The room sorts risks by a simple logic: resolved, assigned to an owner, accepted or mitigated. The commitments from the room form the basis of release planning.

When does Big Room Planning pay off? The calculation

Big Room Planning pays off when the waiting costs of dependencies per cycle exceed the cost of the event including preparation. Calculate the cost of the event in person-days and divide it by the waiting cost per dependency. The result is the number of dependencies from which the room pays for itself. The following example is illustrative.

For this group the room pays for itself once about 18 dependencies arise per cycle and the event resolves most of them. With eight teams and several open dependencies each per cycle that threshold is within reach; with three teams it usually lies out of reach. The calculation does not replace measurement: count beforehand how many dependencies actually arose in the last quarter and how long they waited. The value of the waiting time can also be assessed with the cost of delay, as the article on cost of delay shows.

What prerequisites does Big Room Planning need?

Big Room Planning needs four prerequisites: a shared cadence across the teams, named product owners, decision-makers in the room and prepared backlogs. Without a shared cadence there is no beat at which dependencies fall due. Without product owners there is nobody to set priorities in the room. Without decision-makers, conflicts over capacity and precedence stay open, and the commitments are worthless. Without prepared backlogs the teams spend the first day understanding their tasks.

For group size, the Scaled Agile Framework names 50 to 125 people. Below that, a smaller format is often enough; above it, you split the group and plan in parallel. Whether the room can be used virtually is answered by practice with yes: distributed teams plan over several shorter sessions with a shared digital board. Exchange at the table is denser, and the virtual variant is workable for dispersed locations and saves travel costs.

Which mistakes make Big Room Planning ineffective?

Four mistakes make Big Room Planning ineffective: missing decision-makers, overloaded days, a plan treated as a contract and no follow-up. When managers appear only for the opening, conflicts stay open and the teams plan on assumptions. When the agenda is too full, no time remains for negotiation between the teams and the room becomes a presentation. When the plan is later treated as an immovable promise, teams lose the courage to name risks. And when nobody follows up the commitments in the weeks afterwards, the dependencies return to the email inboxes.

The alternative in smaller set-ups is a regular coordination meeting between a few teams, supplemented by a visible dependency board. Those who want to coordinate work on several levels will find in the article on Flight Levels a model that complements Big Room Planning at the top level.

Big Room Planning with Niehues Consulting

Niehues Consulting is a consultancy for AI management and organisational design from the delivery perspective, based in Düsseldorf. Founder Marin Niehues builds organisations that deliver, in projects from VC-funded scale-ups to DAX-40 corporations and in more than 20 countries on six continents. In the service area of delivery management he works as delivery manager, project manager or product owner. He prepares joint planning, follows up commitments and makes sure that decisions taken in the room also hold in operations later.

The approach follows the Niehues Delivery Model. For Big Room Planning, three of its check questions matter: Who decides, who delivers, who uses? Which roles, decision paths and interfaces does operations need? Which indicator shows after 90 days that the solution is taking hold? The scope and terms of an engagement are discussed in the free initial consultation, which lasts 30 minutes and can be booked through the contact page.