Scaling Agile at LEGO: Lessons from Large‑Scale PI Planning

Background

LEGO’s Digital Solutions (DS) department, comprising about 20 teams spread across Denmark and India, needed to integrate traditional toy design with emerging digital technologies such as AR, VR, and wearables, prompting a shift toward large‑scale agile practices.

Problem

As the number of teams grew from five to fifteen‑twenty, coordination became painful; product owners spent most of their time in meetings, struggling with cross‑team dependencies, priority conflicts, and aligning on a shared roadmap.

Change

In early 2015 DS reorganised into “team‑in‑team” structures, introduced a shared iteration cadence, decentralised dependency management, and began holding an eight‑week PI (Program Increment) planning event in a large room.

Large‑Room Planning Journey

The two‑day PI planning brought together all delivery teams, managers, customers, and stakeholders to present drafts, discuss dependencies, vote on confidence, and capture risks on visual boards, using techniques such as the “Law of Two Feet”, ROAM risk classification, and pull‑based work selection.

Outcomes

Key benefits included reduced duplicate work, clearer cross‑team dependencies, faster priority adjustments by managers, improved customer trust, higher planning predictability, and increased team morale. The practice also spread to other LEGO divisions.

Challenges & Ongoing Experiments

Remaining challenges involve handling diverse product streams, balancing the length of planning events, and continuously experimenting with formats (e.g., reducing to one day, adjusting confidence voting). The team continues to iterate on the process to maximise value.

Conclusion

The case study demonstrates that large‑room PI planning can dramatically improve alignment and flow in multi‑team environments, but it requires continual adaptation, strong leadership support, and a focus on sustainable, pull‑based delivery.