How 20+ Teams Eliminated Double-Entry and Built Predictable Delivery
Industry: Automotive Manufacturing
Region: EMEA
Scale: 2 Agile Release Trains, 20+ teams
Duration: 5 years using Easy Agile Programs
We spoke to Daniel Rozen, an experienced Release Train Engineer. We've kept our customer's brand anonymous due to company policy on case study participation.
The Problem
Daniel Rozen, an experienced RTE with a major automotive manufacturer, was trying to coordinate PI planning across more than 20 teams using Mural. It wasn't working.
Teams maintained 150 epics in Jira for their daily work. Only 90 appeared in Mural. Every planning cycle meant manual reconciliation, no single source of truth, and constant firefighting.
"We tried for like one or two [PIs], and then we said, 'No, this won't work. If we want to work in this way, we need to provide the right tools that will actually motivate the people to plan.'"
The bigger issue was visibility. Multiple teams worked on the same epics, but understanding how their work connected was nearly impossible.
"It was a lot of work. And the end result was really bad. We didn't understand it. It was not possible to understand the connections between everything."
Teams resisted planning because the tooling made it harder, not easier.
What They Needed
Daniel knew what had to change. Any tool had to integrate directly with Jira, show team planning and dependencies clearly, and be simple enough for teams to actually adopt.
"We decided to look for a tool that will allow us to connect to Jira directly and not do double booking—one booking in Jira and then creating post-its, which is useless."
After evaluating several options, they selected Easy Agile Programs. Their ART became the pilot, and the tool later became standard across the organisation.
The Journey
Daniel described how adoption evolved through three distinct phases.
Year 1: Establishment
"The first phase is the hardest one. It's establishing the routines, establishing the processes, establishing the tools. That takes a lot of energy and a lot of conflicts. That's the first year."
This was about getting teams to show up, trust the process, and use the tool consistently. Training from Easy Agile proved valuable—Daniel recorded it and teams still reference it years later.
Year 2: Consolidation
"The second year is consolidation. Okay, now we understand each other and now we're working with the same tools. And in the consolidation part, as an RTE, you start to let go more—let the Scrum Masters take more charge into their work."
The mechanics worked. Scrum Masters led their teams through planning. Daniel could focus on bigger challenges rather than constant facilitation.
Year 3+: Optimisation
"Then the third stage—that's where I am right now—which is, okay, now everyone knows what to do... Things are working, they're delivering 70%-75% of what they're planning, which is—I want to get to an 80% level, that's okay."
Teams deliver consistently. Planning runs smoothly. The system works without constant intervention.
What Changed
Teams Got Standardisation
"Standardisation. That each team can put their epics quite easily, plan their user stories, plan their story points. They can explain the objectives that they have committed to, what they have not committed to."
Every team plans the same way. This consistency makes patterns visible, enables comparison, and builds organisational muscle memory.
Teams Could See How Work Connected
"It's a different view that Jira doesn't provide."
Teams see how their work connects to others. Dependencies become visible. Capacity planning gets realistic.
Collaboration Became Easier
"The tool helps them to plan according to their capacity, which is super important. And it helps them to negotiate with other teams and create the necessary user stories and connect them to the different topics... It really helps them to collaborate between the different teams at the same time."
Teams negotiate capacity directly with each other, leading to realistic commitments and predictable delivery.
The Results After Five Years
Teams now deliver 75% of planned work consistently, targeting 80%. Dependencies are minimal because they built proper end-to-end teams. Teams work in native Jira day-to-day, with Programs providing the planning layer.
When asked what would happen if Programs disappeared:
"No, then I'm completely lost... it will require a lot more of my time to work on things that don't add value, because that's what Easy Agile gives us—I mean, the facility of visualisation and transparency. So it will demand much more time from my perspective and for the Scrum Masters."
What They Learned
Build End-to-End Teams
"Build end-to-end teams, really looking to the flows. Not to change from a line perspective to this way of working without actually asking yourself, 'What is the end-to-end?' Many companies do that in the beginning, and then they realise that we just changed from our line to some groups, and we didn't fix anything."
Team structure determines coordination overhead. Get it right from the start.
See the Big Picture First
"Always see the big picture, the strategic—where are we heading—and start dividing the different Agile Release Trains from that perspective and implement. So even though there are good examples at the bottom, …let's see the big picture of the whole company."
Bottom-up adoption can work, but top-down thinking about how ARTs fit together prevents restructuring pain later.
Give Teams Proper Tools
Process changes without tooling support create resistance. The right tools make new ways of working easier, not harder.
Expect It to Take Time
True adoption takes years, not months. Year one establishes foundations. Year two builds confidence. Year three and beyond is where optimisation happens.
About Easy Agile Programs
Easy Agile Programs is a Jira-native app for PI planning, program roadmaps, and cross-team coordination. Built for teams who need to align on strategy, plan with confidence, and deliver without surprises.
Related Case Studies
Chaos to clarity: How NFON mastered dependencies
NFON is a leading cloud-based Unified Communications (UC) provider, helping over 50,000 customers and working with over 3,000 partners across Europe. As part of their goal to create a more agile company, the business is undergoing a company-wide transformation led by Agile Transition Leader, Solution Engineer and System Architect Stefan Höhn.
A major challenge during this project was managing dependencies across a large development team. “We still have over 100 people working on designing and developing our services. This means we have around 14 to 15 teams with many dependencies, so we needed to find a way to manage this process better,” said Stefan.
Planning session filled with fun - and chaos
“Do you have any idea what we have done here?”
“Well, yes, I linked the user stories”
“But can you comprehend it? Can you visualize it?”
“No, I can’t”
Conversation between Stefan and his colleague
The difficulty in visualizing dependencies was a major sticking point for Stefan and the business. PI Planning sessions - described as ‘fun but chaotic’ - were where the teams struggled the most. “We would have around 250 people meet in a space with five-meter wide and three-meter high walls where people would add their ideas and find threads and dependencies,” he said. “But after we dispersed and went back to the office, the momentum was gone. And I would always ask - can we have somehow done that in an electronic way?”.
The problem to be solved
When Stefan began looking for a solution, he found very few options that helped visually manage dependencies. After discovering Easy Agile Programs, Stefan felt he had found the tool he was looking for.
"What we try to achieve is to really manage our dependencies," said Stefan. "If you have so many people, things get complex."
"So if you imagine you have 14 teams in a sprint. You could assume you'd have at least 140 user stories, and a likelihood that there are dependencies, many dependencies, within the team and outside of the team."
"Easy Agile Programs helps make the whole plan much more visible, and helps us prevent surprises that teams wouldn't deliver something that would've been necessary or important for other teams. I think we've seen quite an improvement there."
The solution
Creating and visualizing dependencies
“Easy Agile Programs makes it so easy to manage the dependencies. It's not only about the visualization of the dependencies, but also creating them. These are actually two things I love most about the tool."
Stefan Höhn, Agile Transition Leader, NFON
“We’re trying to use the techniques in SAFe, and that includes PI planning,” said Stefan. “During PI Planning, the teams would talk about objectives and risks. But now there's a third thing we want the teams to talk about, and that's the dependencies."
"When the business owners come around and talk to the teams and see what they've done throughout planning, one of the topics is 'can you show us your dependencies?' And that wouldn’t be possible without the tool”.
"It's not only about the visualization of the dependencies, but also creating them. These are two things I actually love most about the tool," said Stefan.
In Easy Agile Programs, teams have a dedicated planning space where they can create dependencies within and between teams, and these will be automatically added to the Jira issue.
"More and more teams are seeing the value in planning and having that support of it being visible, because it's easy to see if they're running into a problem.""(Sometimes) you may not even be aware that you have a problem. So what I would tell you is, if you create dependencies - links within Jira - just use Easy Agile Programs and visualize it, to see whether you have a problem or not."
The colour of the dependency line in Easy Agile Programs indicate its health, and with the the help of filters, it's easy to isolate discussions to where teams need to be unblocked. If a dependency is green it's healthy, yellow it is at risk and a red dependency line indicates a conflict.
"I encourage teams to look at the dependencies regularly, every other week to see if something has changed. And most likely it has changed."
"We even created some 'rules' or guidance to make a habit out of discussing dependencies. We basically say, green is fine, you must not have any red ones, and make sure you have as few yellow (dependency lines) as possible between the teams and none within the team."
As a native app inside Jira, Easy Agile Programs enables you to create dependencies between two native Jira issues using Jira dependency links within the tool, and these are automatically reflected elsewhere in Jira in real time.
Managing dependencies
“With Easy Agile Programs, it took us three minutes to fix our dependencies. And even that amazed us”.
Stefan Höhn, Agile Transition Leader, NFON
When Stefan shared how Easy Agile Programs could visualize dependencies with his colleague, he then asked, "How do we go about fixing this? What do you think, how long would it take to actually untangle it?"
His colleague suggested a week.
"With Easy Agile Programs, it took us three minutes to fix our dependencies. And even that amazed us."
Being able to see tasks in the correct sequence and not only understand if there would be any dependencies, but also address them, has saved time and improved the ability to plan reliably.
"You can move work around visually, and while you're moving it around you can see whether. you create new problems or make it better."
"Really the tool helps us to do things faster and much more - I wouldn't even say efficiently - but effectively."
Easy Agile Programs brings clarity to the chaosStefan has now embedded Easy Agile Programs into NFON’s agile practices to help facilitate their PI Planning process and better manage dependencies. “This experience shows how tools can make a difference,” said Stefan. “It’s why I’m always telling teams to just use the tool - create dependencies, link it to Jira, and try it out”.
Want to see Easy Agile Programs in action?
Suncorp accelerates agile transition with Easy Agile Programs
Suncorp is one of Australia's largest financial services companies, offering a range of insurance and banking solutions across Australia and New Zealand. When the organization recently changed direction to focus on a more agile path, Scrum Master Dexter Driver quickly saw they needed to find a better way to complete the planning process.
“When managing our projects, we had previously used the Waterfall approach or a mix of Waterfall with Agile,” said Dexter. “After changing direction to go down a more agile path, I began looking for tools to help us with that transition.”
Building effective plans with the right level of detail
To align with the organization’s focus on agile, Dexter began looking for a solution to help improve collaboration and simplify the planning process while maintaining sufficient detail within the plan. “The goal was to be able to produce and present quarterly plans that work for us,” said Dexter. “That meant the plan had to have enough detail for the teams to collaborate while also being quick and easy to understand”.
Intuitive from the start
“From the first time we used it, it was very simple. It was very quick to understand, and I didn't need to go through any training.”
Dexter Driver, Scrum Master, Suncorp
Dexter found Easy Agile Programs was easy to use and intuitive from the very start. The drag-and-drop functionality allowed for easy organization and a clear prioritization of tasks, saving valuable time for the teams. “It does what you need in a very simple, easy way,” said Dexter. ”We can share a simplified view while improving communication and the quality of our planning”.
TRY FOR YOURSELF IN OUR DEMO ENVIRONMENT
By using Easy Agile Programs, Dexter found three clear benefits for the business:
Improved dependency mapping
With a clear view of inter-squad dependencies, Dexter explained that teams could better understand and manage their dependencies and reliance on each other. “For the last few quarterly planning events, it's been much easier to communicate our plan and provide a clearer timeline, especially to some of our executive managers,” said Dexter.
Streamlined communication
The integration of Easy Agile Programs into the planning process meant that teams no longer had to move between two different platforms. “The ability to look at increments while we’re planning is probably one of the biggest things that is helping us in our day-to-day work,” said Dexter.
Enhanced collaboration
The simplified view combined with the quarterly planning events has helped create clear communication between teams, executives, and stakeholders. “Not only can they see the plan, but it makes it easier for us to talk to them and explain things as we go along,” said Dexter.
Easy Agile Programs becomes Suncorp’s preferred planning tool
Thanks to clear benefits around clear planning, communication, and collaboration, it wasn’t long before Easy Agile Programs became the preferred tool to complete the quarterly planning cycle.
“Easy Agile Programs is very easy to use, and it's made communication across teams a lot easier and more effective. So, my advice to anyone interested is to just give it a go”.
Dexter Driver, Scrum Master, Suncorp
How AF group closed hybrid PI planning gaps
AF Group is on a mission to provide innovative insurance solutions and deliver exceptional customer experiences via its network of affiliate brands. As part of this mission, the group embarked on an enterprise-wide SAFe transformation to better align products to strategy and continuously deliver value. It was during this project where issues around collaboration and virtual PI planning came to a head.
“We’ve always worked in our silos, so identifying and then creating dependencies has been a big obstacle for us,” said Amanda Latusek, Manager, Enterprise Portfolio & PMO at AF Group. “We needed to find a way to work together as a cohesive team to deliver our PI objectives”.
The problem to be solved: collaboration during virtual PI Planning
Collaboration across virtual teams was essential to delivering the transformation, but making this happen in practice during virtual PI planning events was a struggle. The team tried two different solutions prior to Easy Agile Programs to help address this, only to have Scrum Masters needing to duplicate their work to try and bridge the gaps. They also found dependencies weren’t always planned for or communicated, which resulted in unplanned work coming into the PI execution phase and missed commitments.
“We didn’t have a program board that would provide us the visualization we needed to collaborate effectively,” said Amanda. “So, when I came across Easy Agile Programs, I decided to bring in the tool to see if it could help facilitate our virtual PI planning”.
From demo to implementation in two weeks
“The biggest thing that stood out to me about Easy Agile Programs was the ease of use.”
Amanda, Manager - Enterprise Portfolio & PMO, AF Group
Amanda spent two hours testing the tool within the sandbox environment. After getting a better understanding of the tool’s capabilities and functionalities, she created bespoke training videos to share with team members in different timezones so they could learn async how the application worked in their organizational context.
“I was able to stand it up and train our product managers, scrum masters, and RTEs on the tool in two weeks before we used it in our real-life virtual planning PI event,” said Amanda. “We had minimal challenges when transitioning to Easy Agile Programs, with Jira already configured in a way that fit nicely into the tool”.
Clear results within the first PI planning session
“We noticed results within the first PI Planning session as we could see how our teams were collaborating together and identifying dependencies.”
Amanda, Manager - Enterprise Portfolio & PMO, AF Group
Amanda admits that though she was initially nervous about introducing another change management piece to the transformation project, the results have been worth it. “The positive feedback about using this tool has been incredible,” said Amanda. The wins for AF Group include:
Improved collaboration during and beyond PI Planning
“The improvement in collaboration has been a night and day difference,” said Amanda. “The tool is forcing us to have conversations about dependencies during the PI event and encourages more collaboration during the PI execution. As a result, our teams are aware of the risks related to dependencies and they can mitigate those as soon as possible”.
Identifying and managing dependencies to deliver value
Amanda explains that the tool has helped the team overcome challenges around identifying dependencies. “Easy Agile Programs helped us quickly overcome this hurdle so we could start collaborating more efficiently as a team,” said Amanda. “We're seeing more and more dependencies being identified and tracked, which ultimately leads to better quality and delivery of value.”
No duplication of work for better efficiency
Fully integrated capabilities within Jira have played a key part in helping AF Groups’ Agile teams be more effective during PI Planning and more efficient during the execution phase. “With Easy Agile Programs, we don’t need to duplicate our work in Jira,” said Amanda. “Instead, we can create our program within the tool, and it seamlessly integrates into our Jira application, automatically linking any issues or dependencies we’ve identified”.
Better managing risks
“The visualization Easy Agile Programs provides has helped us manage risks,” said Amanda. “The tool will call out healthy, at risk, and blocked (dependencies)risks. This drives better communication across the Agile release trains so they can tackle the right type of risks accordingly”.
Value beyond PI Planning
One of the unexpected benefits of introducing the tool was the application of the program board beyond PI Planning. “Our team members are now using it for our Scrum of Scrums so they can take that collaboration across other Agile teams to ensure timely delivery,” said Amanda.
Driving better collaboration to deliver more value
AF Group now has around 300 people relying on Easy Agile Programs for PI Planning events across four Agile release trains and seven shared services teams. “Easy Agile Programs allowed our business to come together and collaborate in a more efficient way,” said Amanda. ”It’s helped create more trust and ultimately, helped us deliver more value across our organization.”
“My advice to other companies considering Easy Agile Programs is not to wait. The tool has brought us a lot of success for our Agile practices enterprise-wide in a short period of time”.
Amanda, Manager - Enterprise Portfolio & PMO, AF Group