Perform PI planning in EAP

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Perform PI planning in EAP

    The Planning board in Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) enables ServiceNow customers to plan and coordinate work for multiple teams across iterations, such as during Big Room Planning. It supports tracking progress, visualizing dependencies, and rescheduling work quickly to align with changing business priorities.

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    Planning Board Layout and Configuration

    The Planning board layout varies based on the Agile team level configured in EAP:

    • ART, Solution Train, Portfolio: Two-dimensional Kanban boards with horizontal and vertical lanes that differ based on hierarchy.
    • Agile Team: Simple Kanban board showing work item states as vertical lanes, with cards representing work items.

    Cards can be displayed in compact or full size, with full cards showing detailed data such as item number, state, and indicators for enablers, dependencies, or blockers. The default grouping of cards depends on the team hierarchy and iteration settings in EAP's configuration.

    Default Grouping of Work Items

    • Agile Team: Vertical lanes represent story states for the selected iteration (e.g., Sprint), showing Stories assigned to the team.
    • ART: Horizontally grouped by child teams; vertical lanes represent iterations within the Planning Interval (PI).
    • Solution Train: Horizontally grouped by child ARTs; vertical lanes represent work item states.
    • Portfolio: Horizontally grouped by child Solution Trains; vertical lanes represent work item states.

    Enabling toggles for Dependencies or Capacity allows visualization of work item dependencies and team workload, respectively.

    The Planning board shows only work item types enabled in its default EAP configuration (e.g., Features for ART). Customers can request admins to configure the board to display additional work item types like Capabilities, Epics, or Stories.

    Kanban Team Layout

    • Portfolio Kanban: Two-dimensional board with teams as horizontal lanes and work states as vertical lanes; unassigned work appears in the Portfolio section.
    • Team Kanban: One-dimensional Kanban board showing assigned work.

    Customers can customize the types of work items displayed and create multiple types directly from the Planning board.

    Getting Started with PI Planning in EAP

    • Plan work for an ART: Use the Planning board to plan work across all teams in an ART over multiple Planning Intervals, managing dependencies and blockers in real time.
    • Work item dependencies: Understand how dependencies between work items are represented on the Planning board to coordinate team efforts.
    • Personalize the Planning board: Select metrics and indicators to display on cards for quick access to key information during planning and execution.

    Using the Planning board of Enterprise Agile Planning, plan work for multiple teams across iterations (for example, Big Room Planning). Track the progress of work, create and visualize dependencies between work items, and reschedule work to react quickly to changes while confirming alignment with business priorities.

    Layout of Planning board

    Figure 1. Planning Board for an Agile Release Train (ART)
    ART planning board in EAP.
    Based on the EAP configuration, the layout of the Planning board across different team levels such as Agile Team, ART, Solution Train, or Portfolio is:
    • ART, Solution Train, and Portfolio: Two-dimensional Kanban board layout with differences in the horizontal and vertical lanes.
    • Agile Team: Simple Kanban board with work item States as the vertical lanes.

    The work items are represented as cards. You can choose to display cards in the compact or full size. Full size cards have data points on them such as item Number, State, and indicators for enabler, dependencies, or blocked whereas compact cards display just the short description.

    Default grouping of work items

    As you go bottom to top in an Agile structure, the cards are grouped as follows for each team:
    Important:
    The team hierarchy and the iterations within teams are based on your EAP configuration. The following information applies to the default Full Configuration.
    • Agile Team: For an iteration, vertical lanes represent the State of the story.

      For example, if Sprint is the planning calendar configured for an Agile Team, the cards on the Planning Board represent the work assigned for the selected Sprint. For an Agile Team, you can see Stories on the planning board.

    • ART: For an iteration, the Story cards are horizontally grouped by child teams and vertical lanes represent the iterations of the child teams.

      If Planning Interval (PI) is the planning calendar configured for ART, the vertical lanes represent the Sprints within the selected PI.

    • Solution Train: Horizontally grouped by child ARTs and vertical lanes represent the state of the item.
    • Portfolio: Horizontally grouped by child Solution Trains and vertical lanes represent the state of the item.
    • If the Dependency toggle is enabled, you can visualize the dependencies between work items.
    • If the Capacity toggle is enabled, you can visualize the work load of the teams.
    The Planning board for an EAP team shows only those work items that are enabled in its default configuration. For example, for an ART with Full Configuration, the Planning board shows only Features by default. If your product managers or team members want to switch to viewing other work item types such as Capabilities, Epics, or Stories, work with your admin to update the required EAP configuration details. For more information, see Configure display of other work item types in EAP Backlog and Planning board.
    Switch between viewing Feature and Story on ART planning board.
    Tip:
    For an ART, if you switch from viewing Story to another work item type on the planning board for the first time after updating this configuration, you might not have your work item cards displayed. To resolve this, ensure that the Vertical lane selection in the Planning board personalization is not set to Enterprise agile iteration.

    Layout and default grouping for Kanban teams

    The Planning board for Kanban teams is grouped as follows:
    • Portfolio: Assigned work items are displayed in a two-dimensional Kanban board, with the teams as the horizontal lanes and state of the assigned work as the vertical lanes. Any work item that is not assigned to the child teams is displayed in the Portfolio section.

      Planning Board for an EAP portfolio of the type Kanban.

    • Team: Assigned work is displayed in one-dimensional Kanban board.

    As with Backlog, you can change the Type of work items displayed and create work items of multiple types from the Planning board.

    Use the following tasks to get started with PI Planning within Enterprise Agile Planning.