We all know it. We've been in our team breakout session for 30 minutes and we have no user stories planned yet. Instead, our conversations revolve around details. “Hey folks, we've already used up a quarter of our team breakout time”. Stress is starting to build in the team. Will we be ready in time with our draft plan? And by the way, how much time do we actually have left? Many teams are going through this or a similar situation. We have heard this from our customers again and again. A simple method is to set a timer. In piplanning.io the RTE can configure a timer for the whole ART. For example two hours "team breakout". This timer is visible on all boards for all participants of the PI Planning. With one click on it we can see the remaining time. If the time is less than one hour, the circle starts to decrease. If the time falls below two minutes, the color changes from blue to alarming red. In that case it is high time. Get your stuff done. 

Now the team can also set an individual timer for their own team board. For example "Hey everyone let's give 15 minutes and estimate the team capacity within this timebox". or “to finish our draft plan within 2 hours we should not spend more than 30 minutes planning this specific feature”. These timers are only heard and seen by the people who are present on the corresponding team board. And yes I said “heard”. When the timer runs out, you will hear a sound that is probably very familiar to all STEs. It comes from the STE Rap song.

So what are you waiting for? Boost your productivity too and set realistic timeboxes for your team in piplanning.io

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