Budgeting in Scaled Agile Planning
As organizations increasingly embrace agile at scale, the demand for smarter, more integrated planning tools continues to grow. Teams aren’t just managing stories and backlogs—they’re aligning roadmaps, dependencies, capacity planning, and stakeholder expectations across entire portfolios. One area, however, has often been left out of the conversation: integrated budgeting.
At Agile Hive, we are always exploring new features and functionality for our “SAFe® in Jira” solution, and as such, we are exploring a new budgeting feature within our app. This enhancement is designed to help organizations align their financial planning directly with agile execution—bridging the gap between strategy, delivery, and dollars. But before we go too far, we want to hear from you: Is this something you would find valuable?
Why Budgeting Matters in Scaled Agile Environments
Traditionally, budgeting and financial forecasting have been siloed from agile teams. Finance departments work in annual or quarterly cycles, while agile teams iterate quickly and pivot based on changing priorities. This mismatch creates friction, delays, and misalignment—especially when trying to measure the return on investment for agile initiatives.
By integrating budgeting directly into agile planning tools, organizations can:
- Gain Real-Time Financial Visibility: As teams plan and update work, associated budgets and costs can be tracked automatically. No more manual reconciliation or disconnected spreadsheets.
- Improve Forecasting Accuracy: Budget data layered on top of your agile plans allows for better prediction of resource needs and financial impacts over time.
- Enhance Stakeholder Communication: Leadership wants to know how much initiatives cost, how funds are allocated, and what the ROI looks like. With embedded budgeting, you can provide that clarity at every level.
- Support Lean Portfolio Management: Align investments with value streams, measure budget burn against value delivered, and make informed trade-off decisions quickly.
- Strengthen Governance and Compliance: Maintain audit-ready records of funding decisions and ensure that financial controls are respected throughout the agile process.
What the Budgeting Feature Could Include
We’re currently in an “ideation” phase, discussing how this feature could look and function, but here are a few ideas:
- Budget Planning at Multiple Levels: Allocate budgets at the portfolio, program, or team level, and roll up or drill down as needed.
- Real-Time Budget Tracking: Monitor actual spend vs. planned budgets in real-time, linked directly to work items and resource allocations.
- Custom Cost Structures: Configure your own cost models based on roles, locations, or other organizational rules.
- Visual Budget Dashboards: Get instant visibility into budget trends, overruns, and underutilized funds with intuitive visualizations.
- Scenario Modeling: Simulate the financial impact of shifting priorities, reallocating resources, or launching new initiatives.
Is This Something You’d Use?
Here’s where we need your input. We believe budgeting is a critical, often-overlooked element in agile planning, especially as organizations scale. But we want to validate that with our users.
Would you use an integrated budgeting feature in your agile planning tool? What challenges do you face today in aligning budgets with agile delivery? What kinds of insights or reports would be most helpful to you?
Whether you’re a program manager trying to balance team capacity with funding constraints, a portfolio leader aiming to justify investments, or a finance stakeholder looking for better transparency—your perspective matters.
Let’s Build This Together
We’re committed to building tools that solve real problems for real people. If you’re interested in shaping the future of this budgeting feature—or if you simply have thoughts on how it could help your organization—we’d love to hear from you.
Drop us a message, or reach out directly at agilehive@seibert.group. Your feedback could help define a feature that empowers scaled agile teams to deliver value and stay financially aligned, all within one platform.
