In the ever-evolving world of Agile and SAFe methodologies, Program Increment (PI) Planning is a cornerstone for aligning teams towards a shared mission and vision. As organizations increasingly embrace remote and hybrid work models, the need for effective online PI Planning tools has never been more critical. Today, we’re comparing two popular tools in this domain: Ativo and Kendis.
Ativo Agile Programs: Streamlining Agile Workflows
Ativo Programs is a practical and easy-to-use Jira plugin that simplifies SAFe program management. It provides transparency on your PI features, stories, dependencies and objectives. Key features include:
- Manage (cross-team) dependencies
- Real-time collaboration and fully integrated n Jira
- Visual planning board for the ART
- Risk & Issue Management
The planning board can be a bit overwhelming because is has the option to show lined for parent-child relationships as well as for dependencies. The filter and view options however allow the user to customize the view. So depending on the task at hand the user can set the filter to view the relevant information.
The teams can set their commitment on epic/feature level and also immediately record impediments and risks which can then be categorized with a RAG status.
The configuration of Ativo has many options for team configuration and allow you to define how to work with your epics and stories. Running multiple programs next to each other is also possible, however best is the use strict naming convention so that is easy to seperate the programs and PI periods.
Since the tool is a plugin in Jira it also runs live data, changes made in the Ativo planning board are instantly visible in the backlog of the teams and vice versa. There is also no issue around access, since all Jira users can reach the plugin and project permissions are taken into consideration.
