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We user JIRA for bug tracking and release management and we have started using greenhopper for project management inside of JIRA but one thing that it lacks is the idea of user stories versus tasks in those users stories. Does anyone recommend other task board like agile project management tools that fully support users stories and tasks as well as being fast and simple to user. I started looking at targetprocess so if anyone has feedback on that specifically it would be great as well.

leora
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  • SO is dead set against recommendation questions. You may try asking again in [SoftwareRecs](http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com). – Dan Dascalescu Feb 24 '14 at 00:29

10 Answers10

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TargetProcess is the least intrusive project mgmt tool I've used.

Todd Brooks
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    I personally have had nothing but pain with TargetProcess. The UI is slow and extremely complicated, they continually make the app more difficult to navigate. I would not recommend TargetProcess to my worst enemy – Sean Chambers May 26 '09 at 13:50
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    Sean, TargetProcess simplified navigation greatly this year. So it is not an issue anymore. – Michael Dubakov Dec 02 '10 at 09:21
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A common anti-pattern for Scrum and XP teams is to break stories down into tasks, track those tasks, and at the end of the iteration notice that all tasks are done, but the user stories aren't (because they are more than just the sum of their tasks).

I highly recommend not tracking tasks at all. Brainstorm them for estimation, if you like, but always estimate and track whole stories. If a story is to big, break it down into smaller stories - that sometimes takes some creativity, but it's almost always possible.

You can use sub-issues in Jira to aggregate stories into bigger stories, although this isn't very well supported by greenhopper, as far as I remember. If your team is colocated, I would very highly recommend index cards on a white board, anyway - even additionally to Jira, if you have to (that's how we currently work).

Ilja Preuß
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    no offense but i think you suggestion is a bit crazy. The ability to break things down into little tasks for estimating and tracking is critical to making sure the full list of things to do is covered. I do understand the anti pattern of forest versus trees – leora Jul 19 '10 at 17:48
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Whiteboard and sticky notes or note cards.

I know you asked for software, but depending on your environment it might be hard to beat the communication value of a publicly visible task chart.

But if you must have software there's also Rally and VersionOne.

tvanfosson
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  • We're using Rally. I find it to be useful but a bit _heavy_ at times. I dislike having to spend an inordinate time using tools that facilitate development than the development itself. – Matty Nov 26 '08 at 20:38
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    Sadly, the whiteboard method only works if you're near the whiteboard. If you're working off-site or if you're in a meeting and you can't get up and go look at the whiteboard it doesn't help. Moreover, a web-based taskboard is available to everyone who can get online. – Logan Feb 01 '11 at 21:10
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My company have been using TargetProcess for a while and we are very pleased with the product. Whenever we have experienced problems or bugs, we have reported it to them and the problem or bug is solved really fast. It's a great tool that worked well with SCRUM. I really recommend it.

Fossmo
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Acunote is the best one I've found to-date. Really easy, simple and quick to use.

Hates_
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We use Jira with GreenHopper with no problems. If you have control over the configuration of your Jira instance, you can easily create a story issue type that allows having sub-tasks. During the planning phase, we drop the stories onto the next version, and split them into sub-tasks, estimated in more precise time and assigned to team members. If those tasks are separate you can also convert them into sub-tasks of a specific story.

Anthony Brien
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Thoughtworks would be happy to sell you Mingle

Alan
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Take a look at http://AgileZen.com/

Grigori Melnik
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take a look at jazz: http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=44577, http://jazz.net/pub/index.jsp

Ray Tayek
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We've just released a brand-new tool called Crew which might work for you. It's very flexible and allows you to set up a project structure and workflow that fits your process.

http://www.devmynd.com/crew

JC Grubbs
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