How to Run PI Planning in Jira
For teams already using Jira as their issue tracker, running PI Planning inside Jira means the PI objectives, team iterations, and cross-team dependencies connect directly to the tickets engineers are working on. There is no separate planning artifact to keep in sync with the actual work.
This guide covers using Jira Advanced Roadmaps (now called Jira Plans on newer instances) to run PI Planning — from setting up the PI structure to managing cross-team dependencies and tracking PI progress.
Step-by-step guide
Set up the PI structure using Epics and Versions
In Jira, create a Version (also called a Release) for the PI: name it "PI 2026-Q3" with a start and end date covering the full PI. All stories and features committed during PI Planning should be linked to this version. Create an Epic for each PI Objective per team: "Team Falcon — PI Objective 1: Reduce onboarding drop-off by 20%." These epics become the trackable commitment artifact.
Enable Advanced Roadmaps and create a PI Plan
In Jira Advanced Roadmaps (Settings > Plans), click "+ Create Plan." Select the projects belonging to all teams in the Agile Release Train (ART). Name the plan "ART — [PI Name]." Set the time horizon to the PI dates. The plan view shows all teams' sprints in parallel, enabling cross-team visibility that individual project boards cannot provide.
Assign stories to teams and sprints during PI Planning
During the team breakout sessions of PI Planning, engineers and PMs use their individual Jira project boards to create and estimate user stories. They drag stories into sprint slots (Jira's sprint planning backlog view). In the Jira Plan view, these assignments are visible to the entire ART — the RTE and product managers can see in real time which teams have capacity gaps or overcommitments.
Map cross-team dependencies using Jira issue links
When a story in Team Falcon depends on a story in Team Hawk, create a "is blocked by" Jira issue link from the Team Falcon story to the Team Hawk story. In Jira Advanced Roadmaps, enable the Dependencies overlay (the link icon in the plan toolbar). This draws visual dependency lines between stories in the plan timeline, showing the same dependency map that teams would draw with string and tape on a physical program board.
Set up the ROAM Risk board using a Jira Kanban board
Create a separate Jira project called "ART Risks — [PI Name]" with a simple Kanban workflow: Identified, Resolved, Owned, Accepted, Mitigated. During the PI Planning risk session, facilitators create Jira issues for each risk identified by teams. Teams ROAM risks by moving them across the board. Owned and Accepted risks need an Assignee set before PI Planning closes.
Track PI progress using the Jira Releases dashboard
After PI Planning, use Jira's Releases view (Project sidebar > Releases > select your PI version) to track progress across all teams. The releases view shows how many issues are Done vs. In Progress vs. Not Started in each sprint of the PI. The Program Manager reviews this view weekly and flags teams that are falling behind their PI commitments early enough to replan.
Common mistakes
Not setting up the Jira Version before PI Planning starts
If the PI Version does not exist in Jira before PI Planning, teams cannot link their committed stories to the PI during the event. Create the version and instruct teams to assign stories to it before the breakout sessions begin.
Using Jira Advanced Roadmaps for in-session facilitation
Jira Plans works well for tracking but is not a great facilitation surface during a live PI Planning event. Use Miro for the interactive facilitation (sticky notes, dependency arrows, confidence votes) and Jira for the formal artifact after teams transfer their plans. The combination is more effective than either tool alone.
PI Objectives that are too technical
PI Objectives should be business outcomes, not technical deliverables. "Migrate authentication to OAuth 2.0" is a task, not an objective. "Enable SSO for enterprise customers, reducing login support tickets by 40%" is a PI Objective. Business stakeholders need to understand and sign off on PI Objectives.
No follow-up on ROAM risks after PI Planning
Risks identified in PI Planning that are Owned or Accepted need weekly status updates. Create a recurring Jira filter for the ART Risks project showing all Owned and Accepted issues assigned to each team. Review this filter in the weekly ART sync.
Tips
Create a Jira dashboard with gadgets for the PI Version progress, cross-team dependency count, and open risks — share this URL in your weekly ART sync invite
Use Jira's "Label" field to tag all PI-committed stories with "PI-2026-Q3" so you can filter for them across all projects in a single JQL query
Add a Confluence page linked from each Jira Epic that documents the PI Objective rationale and success criteria — the Jira-Confluence link keeps it one click away from the engineering work
Set up a Jira automation that posts to Slack each Friday with the PI version completion percentage — keeps the ART aware of overall PI health without requiring manual reporting
How Vantage helps
Vantage generates dependency-aware tickets from PRDs with wave assignments that map to PI sprint slots. When you push Vantage tickets to Jira, they arrive pre-organized into the dependency sequence that PI Planning is designed to surface — reducing the dependency mapping exercise from hours to a review of what Vantage has already computed.