My family and I love to travel.
For weekend travels, we just go… have that short journey and see what emerges — less intentional in nature.
However, for overseas travel — that usually lasts between 2 and 3 weeks — we do a lot of preparation and planning — it is more intentional, but we are open to emergent things (the unknowns).
It starts with a Vision… a clear vision that is also concise, consistent, compelling, and something that we, as a family, can commit to. The 5 Cs of effective Vision.
We then set several objectives (goals) that are in alignment with the Vision.
And… whatever we do vis-à-vis our travel, we are all in alignment… it moves us towards the Vision.
Risks. We’ve cut down on activities that could expose us to sickness, injuries, or any other scenarios that could stop us from travelling.
Significant Dependencies. Aside from hotel and hotel transport, we are good to go.
Synchronization. For this overseas travel, we’ve contacted and coordinated with our families and friends whom we will be meeting in the Philippine and Australia. One of the major objectives of this travel is to meet up with them. Synchronized schedule with them is paramount. We also made arrangements at home — with the Post Office, for example, asking them to hold and keep our letters whilst we are away.
The essence of SAFe’s PI Planning (PI is the acronym for Planning Interval) is being used here, e.g., achieving alignment of everyone and everything to the vision, setting objectives towards the achievement of the vision, sketching reasonable plan for each objective, having eyes wide open to showstoppers like significant risks and dependencies. Synchronize with folks. All these are necessary so that our three weeks overseas journey is not done by the seat of our pants. Our journey is well planned — it is intentional by design yet can cater for emergent scenarios.
SAFE’s PI Planning Event — it is for everyone
Key Idea: Have a clear, concise, consistent, compelling, and committed Vision. And get everyone and everything aligned to that Vision… and be flexible on the means to its achievement. Be on the lookout for showstoppers by assessing potential Risks, addressing significant Dependencies, and by Coordinating and synchronizing with other people who are involved in the journey.
My succeeding posts are about my family’s travel to the Philippines and Australia… and we are taking SAFe and the Lean Agile Way of Working/Living with us… and see how others outside of the USA are doing with the Lean Agile Way of Working/Living. Each post will have a Key Idea for you to ponder upon if you wish.
There are many other ideas like this — short but sweet ideas — in my new book, ‘SAFe (6.0) Is like …’ . It is available on Amazon… and it has reached ‘# 1 New Release’ several times! Check it out.
