Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill every board, so the examples tell one consistent story.
Fieldnote, Field app squad planning its quarter alongside Office web and the new Integrations squad. Capacity cut by the August holidays.
What the team took away
The squad kept iteration 5 half empty on purpose after three quarters of carrying work over. The August capacity cut was written before any item was placed, which is why iteration 3 only got half a feature.
How to run it
Preparation
Bring the team's capacity, honestly: holidays, on-call, the support rotation, the person who is half on another product.
Have the features the team is expected to contribute to, with their owners reachable during the session.
Put one column per iteration on the wall, with a visible capacity line you are not allowed to cross.
Keep the program board nearby: every dependency you draw here has to exist there too.
Agenda
20 min
Capacity first Write the real capacity per iteration before any item is placed. Planning first and checking capacity later always produces a plan that fits on paper.
45 min
Place the items Put items in iterations, respecting order and dependencies. When a column is full, stop: the overflow is the conversation you came for.
30 min
Draw the dependencies Every item that needs another team gets a string to it, with a date. A dependency with no date is a hope.
25 min
Write the objectives Turn the plan into two or three objectives in business language, not item titles. These are what you will be judged on, not the board.
20 min
Say the risks out loud Name what could stop this plan, and send each risk to the ROAM board rather than solving it here.
10 min
Commit, with a number The team votes confidence on its own plan. Under a certain threshold, you replan now rather than discovering it in three weeks.
Pitfalls
Filling the last iteration to the brim. It is where every overrun lands, and it is the one that should be left with room.
Objectives that repeat the item titles. If the objective is the feature name, nobody outside the team can tell whether it was met.
Hiding a dependency to avoid a difficult conversation in the room. It comes back later, with less time and more people watching.
Afterwards
The dependencies go on the program board, the risks go to ROAM. Revisit the board at each iteration boundary: an untouched team board is a plan nobody is using.