Using The Five Sticky Rule To Guide Pre PI Planning Readiness

Blog Author

Siddharth

Published

30 Jul, 2025

Using The Five Sticky Rule To Guide Pre PI Planning Readiness

PI Planning sets the stage for everything that follows in a SAFe Agile Release Train. But here’s the thing, great PI Planning doesn’t happen by accident. Teams walk in ready—or they stumble. The difference? Often, it’s what happens in the days and weeks before the event. That’s where the Five Sticky Rule comes into play.

What is the Five Sticky Rule?

If you’ve spent any time in Lean-Agile circles, you know that stickies (those famous Post-it notes) are more than just colored bits of paper. They’re how teams surface ideas, challenges, and priorities. The Five Sticky Rule is simple: if you can’t distill your major inputs, risks, dependencies, or priorities into five stickies or less, you’re not clear enough yet.

Five stickies per team, per topic (features, risks, dependencies, objectives, whatever matters)
No hiding behind PowerPoint or lengthy status updates
Forces teams to cut through noise and get to what matters

Let’s see how this sharpens pre-PI Planning.

Why Pre PI Planning Readiness Matters

Pre PI Planning isn’t a warm-up or a nice-to-have. It’s the essential prep that makes sure teams don’t show up cold or confused. You want:

Key stakeholders aligned
High-priority features ready for estimation
Risks and dependencies surfaced, not buried
Everyone walking in with purpose, not just “showing up”

The Five Sticky Rule is the filter to make all this happen. Here’s how you use it, step by step.

Step 1: Define What Needs to Be Clear (and Shared)

First, set your scope. What do you actually need teams and leaders to bring into the PI Planning room?

Usually, you want:

The top features the ART needs to deliver
The biggest risks and impediments (cross-team, system-level, external)
The essential dependencies across teams or vendors
Draft PI Objectives, if possible
Key milestones or events that will shape the next PI

If you’re prepping for PI Planning and you can’t summarize each of these with five stickies (per team), you’re not ready yet.

Step 2: Force the Conversation—Not Just the List

Here’s what most teams get wrong: they treat pre-PI prep as a box-ticking exercise. Someone writes up a list, emails it out, and moves on. The Five Sticky Rule doesn’t let that slide.

The magic isn’t in the sticky itself—it’s in the debate. Teams need to argue about what goes on the stickies. Which features are truly highest priority? What risks could actually derail delivery? Which dependencies will slow us down, and which can we handle as we go?

This debate:

Surfaces gaps in understanding
Reveals misalignment between product, engineering, and stakeholders
Drives hard trade-off discussions before you’re in the heat of PI Planning

If your team spends fifteen minutes in silence and scribbles five stickies, you’ve missed the point. If it takes an hour of back-and-forth and heated discussion to decide what makes the cut, you’re doing it right.

Step 3: Bring Stakeholders In—Early and Visibly

Pre PI Planning isn’t just for ART teams. Product management, architects, business owners, and even some external partners need to be involved.

Product Management: What are the top business priorities?
SAFe Product Owner Product Manager (POPM) Certification teaches how to clarify and communicate this early.
Release Train Engineers: What process blockers or coordination issues need to be solved?
SAFe Release Train Engineer Certification covers facilitation and orchestration at scale.
Scrum Masters and Advanced Scrum Masters: How will teams be coached to cut to the essentials and keep discussions honest?
Get more on this with SAFe Scrum Master Certification and SAFe Advanced Scrum Master.
Agile Leaders: Are you modeling the discipline and focus that Five Stickies demand?
Leading SAFe Agilist Certification Training dives deep into leadership behaviors that support this approach.

These roles aren’t just observers—they need to contribute their own stickies, defend their priorities, and help clarify the landscape.

Step 4: Make It Visual—Map the Stickies

Once teams and stakeholders have battled it out and reached five stickies per key topic, make it visible. This could be a virtual whiteboard, Miro, or even a wall in your physical workspace. The goal:

Everyone can see the real priorities, risks, and dependencies—no hiding
Cross-team conversations start before PI Planning, not after
Gaps, overlaps, or contradictions become obvious

Some teams even snapshot their “sticky walls” and include them as an artifact in their Inspect and Adapt sessions—raising readiness year after year.

Step 5: Pressure-Test Your Readiness

Here’s a test: If a new team member or business stakeholder walks in the room and looks at your five stickies for features, risks, dependencies, etc.—do they get what matters? Or do they need a twenty-minute explanation?

If the stickies are clear, specific, and meaningful, you’re ready for PI Planning
If they’re vague, overloaded, or just buzzwords, keep going. Debate. Simplify. Prioritize.

This is where the Five Sticky Rule stings a bit, but it’s better to feel that pain now than to drag it into the main event.

Why It Works

The real power of the Five Sticky Rule isn’t just about brevity. It’s about clarity, shared focus, and—let’s be honest—discipline. Teams are forced to:

Cut out noise and wishful thinking
Align early around what matters most
Bring issues and dependencies to the surface before they turn into big problems
Engage leadership in making tough calls up front

This sets up the ART for a productive, focused, and energetic PI Planning session, not a confused marathon of status reports.

Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)

Let’s call out a few ways teams get it wrong, so you don’t have to repeat them:

Too Vague: Stickies like “Integration” or “Testing” mean nothing without context. Be specific: “Integrate payments module with X API.”
Too Many Stickies: If your team insists every item is essential, push harder. Force prioritization.
No Debate: If nobody disagrees or asks for clarification, people are probably checked out. Make it lively.
No Stakeholder Input: Teams working in isolation miss bigger dependencies or business constraints. Bring everyone in.
Forgetting to Update: The best Five Sticky sessions are iterative. Refine as you learn more—even if that means throwing out stickies and starting fresh.

Pro Tips for Making the Five Sticky Rule Work

Timebox the session. An hour of focused, lively debate beats three hours of passive note-taking.
Use color coding. One color for features, another for risks, and so on.
Review last PI’s stickies. What worked? What didn’t? Adjust.
Keep it visible. Don’t hide your stickies—make them a daily reference point as you lead into PI Planning.

Wrapping Up: Five Stickies, Real Readiness

When pre PI Planning readiness is guided by the Five Sticky Rule, teams show up knowing what matters, why it matters, and who’s involved. You’ve cut the noise, focused the energy, and cleared a path for a successful Planning Interval.

To build the right habits, invest in your Agile roles. Leading SAFe Agilist, SAFe POPM, SAFe Scrum Master, SAFe Advanced Scrum Master, and SAFe Release Train Engineer certifications all reinforce the mindset that makes this work.

The Five Sticky Rule isn’t about limitation. It’s about clarity and discipline—two things that set high-performing ARTs apart.

Also read - Overcoming Common PI Planning Anti Patterns With Discovery Mindset

Also see - How To Conduct A PI Planning Retrospective That Drives Improvements