Product Increment

A product increment is the working result a team delivers at the end of a fixed period. The abbreviation PI comes from large software organisations, where such a period usually lasts eight to twelve weeks and is sometimes also called a program increment. You can think of it as roughly a quarter's work, planned, built and shown as a single whole. So it is not about a single task, but about a coherent package that everyone involved stands behind.

What PI planning is

Before such a period starts, those organisations bring everyone who contributes to it together in the same room. They lay out what really matters over the coming months, who picks up what and where one group's work touches another's. That shared moment is called PI planning. At the largest companies it can run to two days with dozens of people, because many teams need to be aligned with each other.

What it means for an SME

That heavy format makes little sense in a smaller organisation, but the exercise itself does. At its core, you bring the people who do the work together with those who know the priorities, and turn that into a realistic plan instead of a list handed down from above. In a small team the context is already shared and decisions are made on the spot, so half a day per quarter is usually enough. You keep the valuable part and leave the ceremony aside. If you work with two or three people, you don't need that forum, because you discuss it all day anyway.