SAFe Knowledge Base » Iteration Planning
Iteration Planning
Stay committed to your decisions but stay flexible in your approach.
—Tony Robbins
Summary
Iteration Planning is an Agile Team event where the team members commit to the work they will deliver in the upcoming timebox, known as an iteration. The team collaboratively defines a set of Iteration Goals and selects the stories from the team backlog that they believe they can complete to meet those goals. This planning is informed by the team's capacity and historical velocity. The Product Owner and stakeholders are involved to ensure the work aligns with business needs and maximizes value. The primary outcome is a mutual commitment between the team and the business to the iteration goals. The team also creates an iteration backlog of stories to deliver to achieve the goals.
Note: For more on Agile Team events, please see the Framework articles in the series: Iteration Planning, Iteration Review, Team Sync, Team Backlog Refinement, and Iteration Retrospective. Each event can be utilized for Agile Teams that use SAFe Scrum or SAFe Team Kanban.
What is Iteration Planning?
Iteration planning is the first event of the iteration. During planning, the team defines, organizes, and commits to the work for the next iteration. The iteration planning meeting is timeboxed to approximately 90 minutes for a two-week iteration. The team's backlog has been partially identified and planned during PI Planning. In addition, the teams have feedback—not only from their prior iterations but also from the System Demo, stakeholders, and others. This context informs the iteration planning event, shaping the plan for the upcoming iteration.
What is the purpose of Iteration Planning?
The Agile Team members use the Iteration Planning event to commit to a set of iteration goals for the upcoming timebox. They plan a set of stories they feel they can complete to achieve these goals.
The business, often represented by the Product Owner or key stakeholders, is involved to validate that the work the team intends to do will move the team and the business in the intended direction.
Read more about the Agile Team and the Product Owner:
How does Iteration Planning connect with the SAFe Principles?
SAFe Principle #1: Take an economic view: In every iteration, the Agile Team should decide on the most appropriate work to maximize value for the business, rather than blindly following a predefined sequence. The team is problem-solving, and problem-solving often requires adapting plans as the true nature of the problem becomes clear through working on it.
SAFe Principle #8: Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers: The people doing the work are the best equipped to determine how to do it and how much they can complete. The Agile Team members determine how to do the work they face and share with the business and other Agile Teams how much work they can do within the fixed iteration timebox
Read more about SAFe Principle #1 and SAFe Principle #8:
What is the outcome of Iteration Planning?
The primary outcome is the mutual commitment between the Agile Team and the business to the iteration goals. The team commits to achieving the goals, and the business commits to keeping the goals stable for the duration of the timebox. This event also results in a shared understanding of all necessary internal and external collaborations.
Last Update: 18 March 2026