I have served as Backup RTE on an eight-team train. This is what the role actually covered — not the job description version, but the work that had to happen every PI for the train to keep moving.
The train I backed up
Eight teams, roughly seventy-two people, and about twenty-five impediments to clear every increment. At that size nothing coasts. The train either has someone holding the seams together or it does not.
What the role covered
PI Planning Facilitation
- Sized the event to the lift of the PI — a full week when the scope earned it, three days when it didn’t.
- Sent all eight teams out aligned, clear, and committed — not just scheduled.
Risk & ROAM
- Surfaced risks in the open and ROAMed every one — resolved, owned, accepted, or mitigated.
- Pushed mitigation during the event, so teams committed with risks worked, not just logged.
Confidence Vote
- Ran the vote so leadership heard, in the room, whether teams expected a good PI or a hard one.
- Turned a low vote into commitments from leadership on the concerns raised — not just a replan.
Roadmap Planning
- Partnered with Product on roadmaps teams could actually commit to.
- Tied each PI to business objectives, not just available capacity.
MVP of Epics
- Helped Product cut epics to the smallest slice that proves value.
- Less risk carried, and value in customers’ hands sooner.
Dependency Mapping
- Mapped dependencies across the ART so surprises surfaced in planning.
- Coached individual teams to see, own, and manage their own.
ART Dependency Sessions
- Facilitated cross-team dependency sessions as often as once a week.
- Turned blockers into conversations before they turned into delays.
Impediments & Escalation
- Escalated what teams couldn’t clear alone and tracked roughly 25 a PI to closure, status visible to everyone.
- Removed obstacles, kept value flowing, and made follow-through the norm rather than the exception.
Leadership & Culture Coaching
- Coached leaders on ART operations and the mindset behind them.
- Built trust, collaboration, and a real habit of continuous improvement.
Why the confidence vote matters most
Of everything on that list, the confidence vote is the one I protect hardest — and the one most often treated as a formality at the end of a long two days.
That vote tells a story nothing else in the event tells. Leadership hears, straight from the teams and in their own hands, whether this PI looks like a win or a grind. No status report carries that. No summary deck survives contact with it.
When the vote comes in low, the instinct is to send everyone back to replan. That is the wrong instinct. A low vote is the one moment leadership is in the room, listening, and able to commit to the concerns being raised. If leadership has answers, that is when the team should get them — not two weeks later in an escalation thread.
The goal is simple
I serve the ART so the ART can serve the customer. People first, relentless collaboration, transparency always, and a real habit of continuous improvement — not as slogans on a wall, but as the four things that decide whether an eight-team train arrives.
Need coverage for your ART?
Whether it is backup for an RTE who is out, or a fractional RTE a few days a month, the job is the same: keep the train on track, leaders informed, and teams maturing.
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