Manage Scrum Software

Question

What software do you use to manage Scrum software development ?

We've tried Tackle and VersionOne (both free) so far and they are good except for the fact that it's difficult to track work in progress. For example, if I have a task that I estimate will take me 8 hours to complete, I've done 4 hours of work with 4 hours remaining, the task is always reported as 8 hours remaining until it is marked complete, at which time it falls to zero.

I'd like to use a tool that will allow me to take an accurate work at the teams WIP at the end of each week and see how much impact that work has had towards a deadline along with completed tasks.

Thanks for your input!

Have you seen here : http://open-tube.com/10-free-scrum-project-management-tool/ — Spongebob Comrade, Jul 18 '12 at 11:34

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 30 '08 at 15:00

I recommend a white board and excel spreadsheets. The whiteboard has story cards (index cards) , where the work in progress is tracked. The story card starts out with say 8 hours, and as the work progresses decrement the number on the card. At the end of the day, put the numbers in the cards to a spreadsheet.

The whiteboard is visible all the time, and gives the whole team visibility on how the work is progressing.

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

6

This question was asked recently:.

Everything from Excel to VersionOne to Scrumworks to BaseCamp was mentioned.

Personally, though, we use a heavily customized Excel sheet, whiteboards, index cards in a variety of colors and a large corkboard.

You also might want to check out Mingle. It's a tool developed by ThoughtWorks, a company that only does Agile.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:25

Community

1
1

answered Sep 30 '08 at 20:15

Mike Reedell

1,567
15
23

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered May 11 '12 at 15:56

4

We've looked at most of the tools out there and ended up with Scrumwise. We've been using it for a while now, and it's incredibly easy to use, and does what we need. It uses the remaining time on each task to compute the burndown etc.

answered May 11 '12 at 15:56

Brian A.

1
1

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 09 '12 at 08:35

I note that no one has pointed out the misunderstanding of WIP (work in progress).

In agile, “it is not done until it is done”.

While most people see work done as a good thing, it is not. WIP represents investment that can not yet be realised. This is an important part of Agile, but made more explicit in Lean/Kanban.

If you track work done you will encourage developers to work on several things at once, getting everything to “80%” complete. At the end of the project you will spend 4 times more (80% of your time) in “bug fixing”, doing the last 20%. You will look like you are ahead of schedule, but you will over-run.

Also after one sprint, if work packages are small (they will be if you are doing scrum), then the error from not adding part done work to work done is insignificant.

Therefore: Track WIP separately from work done and try to keep it low.

Compromise

As a compromise, you can track part completed with the following rules:

Only track one task per developer. (probably the biggest)
Add a cap, maybe 1/2 sprint.
Discount the rate, maybe 50%, if it is 80% done then report 40%. (tweak the discount rate when you have evidence but don't let it be as high as 100%)

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 19 '12 at 10:28

I was looking up SCRUM software and found this old topic - just my two cents ....

I worked on a project in a healthcare domain for about a year and we used Version One. I am sorry to say, it was perhaps the most despised tool in the project. The testers especially, loathed it. Neither did we developers like it as it was pretty clunky/slow and generally pretty lethargic. We always had excellent customer Support from V1 but the tool just didn't cut it for us.

I am now working in a different project and we are using www.scrumwise.com - and so far so good....

I am evaluating scrumwise as well and I think its quite intuitive and affordable. It won't replace our bug tracker, but as a project management tool I think it will be effective. We are going to try it for this upcoming Sprint. — JBCP, Aug 02 '12 at 20:56

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 11 '09 at 23:01

1

OnTime recently added support for Scrum management (disclaimer: I work for them and helped build the product). :) We also put together an intro video for Scrum if you need more information: Video.

answered Aug 11 '09 at 23:01

Jonas

4,454
3
37
45

Marc Hughes · Answer 7 · 2011-09-14T17:27:14.540

1

I've been working on an open source web based tool that you can install on site or use our hosted version. We've got sub-task tracking and a real time planning poker feature.

http://www.scrumdo.com/

edited Sep 14 '11 at 17:27

answered Feb 03 '11 at 12:27

Marc Hughes

5,808
3
36
46

Any Scrum software that doesn't have first-party support for Tasks isn't worth much in my mind. – moswald Sep 14 '11 at 18:41
2

That probably sounded a little harsh, so I should probably elaborate: stories shouldn't be tracked across a "doing, reviewing, done" board. That's where you put your tasks. A story should have two states: not done and done. Personally, I like seeing ScrumDo's Scrum Board, it's the best one I've seen, visually. But it doesn't properly maintain priorities between states, and like I said, it makes me work on Stories instead of Tasks. – moswald Oct 05 '11 at 15:19

Keith · Answer 8 · 2008-10-01T07:12:14.797

0

VersionOne does let you change the estimates as you go - the burndown report wouldn't work otherwise. You may be hiding the estimate column or have it set to read-only - click the spanner on the right to list available columns and make sure that the estimate/ToDo column is editable.

We've found it to be rather good, though their odd insistence on customised controls breaks in Chrome.

edited Oct 01 '08 at 07:12

answered Sep 30 '08 at 14:58

Keith

150,284
78
298
434

I use VersionOne, and I like it because people outside of the day to day can see 1.[what we are doing], 2.[that we are doing what we say we are doing], and 3.[just look around and be impressed by software teams following a process] – pearcewg Feb 05 '11 at 23:24

score 0 · Answer 9 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

I answered a similar question at https://stackoverflow.com/a/16667842/1810290 and I thought of sharing it here as well.

If you are looking for an online scrum tool, then you could have a look at Flying Donut. It is a new online product, and I've used it in my projects with great deal of success. There is a nice way of organizing your backlog, and its GUI is clean with quick response times. It provides different iteration views for planning, execution, and review.

Disclaimer: I have been using it for many months, since I helped building it.

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 22 '11 at 19:07

0

I would suggest checking out OnTime's Planning board because using excel and an actual white board takes away from actual development time when you can automate the process with software..

answered Mar 22 '11 at 19:07

user671818

1
1

score -1 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 23 '12 at 21:41

We also use a physical board with a google spreadsheet that serves as an online replica. It works really well and doesn't really add any overhead if everyone gets in the habit of maintaining both. I've blogged about it and included a sample spreadsheet:

http://www.littlebluemonkey.com/blog/online-scrum-tools-part-1-the-scrum-board/

score -1 · Answer 12 · answered Sep 30 '08 at 14:48

ScrumWorks is nice for small teams. And free, too, for the basic version. We have about 30 developers with multiple projects/iterations/etc. Some basic burn-down charts, good for "yesterday's weather", etc.

Check it out at:

http://danube.com/scrumworks/basic

score -1 · Answer 13 · answered Sep 30 '08 at 14:55

I think RallyDev might be worth checking out for you. Unless I'm mistaken the way that it tracks time will not cause the issue that you mentioned above.

We have been using it on our project for several months and have grown with it to where the team enjoys using the project.

score -1 · Answer 14 · answered Sep 30 '08 at 14:56

-1

We use Scrum for Team System which is excellent, but you do need to be using Visual Studio Team System to get it!

answered Sep 30 '08 at 14:56

Campbell

2,848
3
28
26

score -1 · Answer 15 · answered Oct 02 '08 at 00:18

-1

I've used this Index card generator, but I see now that there is a newer version link that only uses Excel

I also like their Planning Poker when trying to get estimates.

answered Oct 02 '08 at 00:18

Brad Bruce

7,638
3
39
60

score -1 · Answer 16 · answered Oct 27 '08 at 17:16

-1

Just saw this, maybe in a another stackO q/a, https://scrumy.com/demo

answered Oct 27 '08 at 17:16

kenny

21,522
8
49
87

score -1 · Answer 17 · answered Mar 17 '11 at 18:04

-1

Check out Scrum Pig at http://www.bellacode.com. It is a great Windows tool for teams collaborating together when using Scrum.

answered Mar 17 '11 at 18:04

Geoff Cox

6,102
2
27
30

score -1 · Answer 18 · answered Mar 29 '11 at 09:38

-1

We use RallyDev for scrum management system. And I found it very much handy.

answered Mar 29 '11 at 09:38

Tareq

1,999
2
28
57

score -1 · Answer 19 · answered Oct 13 '11 at 09:25

-1

No-one has mentioned JIRA, is that a cost/OpenSource thing?

I've used JIRA for the last 3 years and have found it to be an excellent tool.

answered Oct 13 '11 at 09:25

Mister Bee

69
2
4

To get best value from JIRA in an agile / Scrum environment, you need to add the GreenHopper plugin (and that costs). – Derek Davidson PST CST May 16 '12 at 07:11

score -2 · Answer 20 · answered Sep 30 '08 at 15:00

-2

We have used XPlanner. It's simple, but does it's job pretty well. Especially Developers get a nice overview for their current status.

answered Sep 30 '08 at 15:00

Yaba

5,979
8
38
44

Manage Scrum Software

20 Answers20

Compromise

Linked

Related