Welcome back. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about Remote PI Planning in the shoes of a Product Owner. For those of you, who already watched the previous lessons know, it is essential to have a well prepared Program Backlog. Support your team going into detailed backlog refinements with Product Management and System Architects before the PI Planning starts. Ask the questions your team would ask. Involve the team wherever necessary and be picky regarding the Definition of Ready. Don't go into the Planning with Features which don't fulfil the Definition of Ready.

There might be leftovers from the past Program Increment. Bring them on the digital Team Board upfront and check priorities based on the Features and Enablers coming from Product Management and System Architecture. The Team should be able to start right away. Don't forget to include team level items like measures coming from past Retrospectives.

The Team Board acts as single source of truth. Focus all your collaboration on creating the plan for the upcoming PI Planning together with the Team. Support the team with ongoing prioritization, estimation and solving dependencies. Being in contact with other Product Owners and Product management over a separate chat helps to coordinate dependency and problem-solving activities.

Don't forget to talk about risks. Not all risks need to be discussed and ROAMed on Program Level. You can already ROAM risks on team level. Take actions and plan measures into your Program Increment plan for those risks which can be tackled by the team. For those risks which need to be addressed on program level, you probably don't want to wait for the ROAMing session. Involve stakeholders, namely Product Management and Business Owners already during the breakout session to talk about risks. That will save you time in the ROAMing session on Program Level.

Finally, let someone from the team presenting the Draft and Final Plan. Too often I see the Product Owner doing the presentation. Take a back seat and let the team shine!

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