Overview
Adding External Organizations allow you to represent and visually manage dependencies with external vendors, suppliers, contractors, or teams outside your Agile Release Train (ART) during PI Planning and PI Execution.
This feature enhances visual management by providing dedicated swim lanes for external dependencies on your ART Planning Board.
External Orgs DO NOT consume a Team license.
Use Case: Visual Management of External Dependencies
Imagine your ART is planning a mobile banking application feature that requires integration with a third-party payment processor and compliance approval from an external security team. Without the External Orgs (and the corresponding additional swimlane on the ART Planning Board) functionality, these critical dependencies might be buried in backlogs or mentioned only in notes; out of sight means out of mind until the deadline arrives.
With the External Orgs functionality and #6 ART Planning Board updates, you can:
Creating a dedicated swimlanes on the ART Planning Board to visualize Dependency sticky notes assigned to these External Org entities.
Assign dependencies directly to these external entities and visualize them in the appropriate swimlane on the ART Planning Board.
Track progress and blockers at a glance during PI events and daily stand-ups.
Ensure nothing falls through the cracks when coordinating with external entities.
This visual approach aligns with Lean Management principles, making external dependencies as visible and manageable as internal team work.
Overview External Dependency Workflow
First, create the External Orgs (under the Organization menu)
Second, when preparing a new PI Session configure the #6 ART Planning Board to +Add Extra Swimlane
. See this Help Article for setting up the #6 ART Planning Board for more details.
Note: The Enterprise Plan allows you to have a dedicated swimlane for each External Org. For example a separate swim lane for dependencies related to the external payment processor and another related to the external security vendor.
Adding External Orgs
This is how you add external orgs to be used in the PI Session configuration / ART Planning Board.
Create External Org's
Navigate to RTE Cockpit
Select Organization
Click the External Org tab
Click Create External Org button to create external entities (e.g., "Payment Processor", "Security Team", "Cloud Vendor").
Enter the Name, click Save.
Note: Remember to configure the #6 ART Planning Board in the new PI Session to have an extra swimlane to display Dependencies assigned to these External Orgs.
With our Standard plan you can manage one External Org. With the Premium and Enterprise plans, you can add unlimited External Orgs to be used in your PI Sessions.