Best Scrum tools

Question

What tools for managing Scrum would you recommend?

Answer 1

I can tell you what not to use. No matter what anyone says, Excel is a lousy way to manage sprints.

Answer 2

We use ScrumWorks and have no complaints!

We've also found that the traditional task board with stickies / index cards is THE most effective because it is visible -- no tool can replace that!

Answer 3

I've used Scrumworks before which did a pretty good job, although if you're using TFS then Scrum for Team System is okay.

I've heard good things about Thoughtworks' Mingle but haven't had a chance to try it yet, and I know a number of people who swear by TargetProcess.

Answer 4

At work we just use an excel spreadsheet. It's simple, flexible, and you can add or change anything you want to it. Which means it's agile :-)

Answer 5

We use VersionOne, which is quite good but somewhat over featured. If I we're setting up anew I'd also consider BaseCamp - not purely a programming tool, but pretty good.

Another good option is actually the low tech one: whiteboard + post-its.

Answer 6

Basically whiteboard + post-its , we did use Scrumworks in the past. We also have custom made cards for out planning poker sessions

Answer 7

I liked the Conchango plugin for TFS. Very customizable and flexible.

Answer 8

We use ProjectCards for ours. I had evaluated VersionOne (the full version, not their new light one), Mingle, Rally, ScrumWorks and a plugin for Serena TeamTrack (which we already use). ProjectCards was great that it was a simple tool which still supported the multiple teams we're running. VersionOne and Rally were just simply too heavy for what we needed (though both looked powerful). Rally refused to talk to us because we were under 75 users and wanted to host it ourselves.

I would certainly suggest starting with something simple - index cards on a wall, or a spreadsheet - first. You'll likely quickly outgrow it, but at least you'll spend your time focused on working with the team rather than trying to fit your team to a tool.

Answer 9

I've been doing Scrum with XP for two years now and the best tools we have are various colors of index cards (colors each for stories, bugs, analysis, tech debt, etc), and some big pieces of foam insulation or large corkboards to stick them too. And a lot of Sharpies.

We also heavily use a wiki (MediaWiki) for information exchange between teams.

For the Scrum Masters, they use a highly-macro'd Excel sheet, which they all hate. They piloted VersionOne and they all liked it.

Answer 10

For projects using trac already, agile42 looks like a nice add-on.

Answer 11

I can't reiterate how crucial it is to find your process before you let a tool dictate it for you.

Start with the basics:

• note cards
• whiteboards
• big visible charts
• excel (if needed for tracking)

Later on you can decide which tool will support how your team works best. I love how Mingle is flexible and seems to have a lot of good features, but it does require serious customization. VersionOne looks like it fits our process well.

Answer 12

I'm piloting Scrum for Team System and it looks promising. They have a nice "Task Board" desktop app which gives a good view of the sprint and allows you to move virtual stickies from column to column (e.g. not started to in progress to ready for test to done). The process templates are a free download. The task board is currently in beta but will have a licence fee when relesaed.

Ive previously used ScrumWorks and it worked mostly, but was rather flakey at times.

Answer 13

Take a look at IceScrum, an opensource apache tomcat web application.

Answer 14

We have used Target Process for around a year, and it's very good. You can buy the software outright, or you can use their hosted version - both work well and the price is reasonable.

We used to use Rally, but everyone in development really hated it - it was slow, unintuitive, cumbersome, and in general not at all what we wanted although it was fairly pricey. After living with it for almost a year, we switched to TP, which is actually quite a good tool.

The other good thing about TP is that the company behind it isn't as well known as VersionOne and Rally, and so are much more responsive to our needs than Rally ever was...

Answer 15

TargetProcess is a good tool, But if you are new to SCRUM, I recommend to use simplest tools first (whiteboard, sticky, etc.). It is important to focus on communication and process first. Then you may feel the need for software tool.

Answer 16

We've used a Google Spreadsheet for a taskboard - but, I guess, only if you have a distributed team. You get the burndown chart automatically if you set it up right.

Answer 17

We are seeing more and more online (hosted) Scrum management tools such as:

• Scrumy
• SkinnyBoard
• Scrumpad
• Acunote
• Banana Scrum
• Scrum Assistant
• Agile Buddy

Scrumy has a free and a commercial, more complete version.

I won't recommend any of them since I do not use them on a regular basis, I'm just listing for the sake of completeness.

Answer 18

I have used Chandler, although its not particularly scrum.

Answer 19

We use Rally. It meets our basic needs (our team is less than 10, so we get the free edition). There are features that it is lacking (like ability to raise the flag when impediments arise or ability to move stuff to QA while documentation tasks are still being completed, etc).

Answer 20

Around here we've also been using Cochango plugin for TFS, but whatever the chosen tool may be the important thing is visibility. Around here we started to print our Burndown chart and take it to each Daily Scrum so that everybody sees it, because when you have an "electronic only" chart people tend to miss it for days.

Answer 21

We use a board on the wall with sticky notes and a blackboard (actually white :)) that we use to draw the burn chart on.

A KISS as can possibly be

Answer 22

A whiteboard.

Answer 23

We use VersionOne. There are free and paid versions. I totally love it.

Answer 24

I have used Greenhopper where JIRA was already available. It requires just a little bit of customization to 2-3 fields in Jira to make the burndowns and estimates work as I expected. Overall, it worked very well.

Answer 25

You can take a look on ScrumDesk. It is targeted on Scrum method and used in small or enterprise companies.

Stories are displayed as cards, in the grid, unique tree map or on the task board. Reports are accessible on one, interactive, view.

Data can be synchronized with TFS too.

It is free for up to 5 users.

Answer 26

Mingle. Eminently flexible. http://mingle.thoughtworks.com/mingle-agile-project-management

Answer 27

Scrumy. As Ben said at the top Note Cards, Whiteboards, Big Visible Charts, and Excel if needed for tracking is where to start. That is exactly what Scrumy is. It is basic and intuitive and gives you just that. Both free and a low priced version.

Answer 28

I would recommend to start with the simplest solution that could possibly work :

• A spreadsheet for the product backlog
• Index cards, post-its, big visible charts on a wall for the sprint backlog

What is important is to start Scrum and to understand it's process, not the tools.

Let the team decide later for a tool if the organization isn't satisfied with the initial solution. But the team has to choose the tool, not someone else.

And FYI, there is a list of tools with reviews on www.userstories.com, Mike Cohn's web site dedicated to user stories and product backlogs.

Answer 29

If you're lucky enough to have everyone co-located, I've found the Whiteboards/stickypads/etc. work pretty well. But if you're trying to coordinate resources across multiple locations (which is the case in many shops), you really need a tool. If you're a TFS shop, I'd recommend Scrum for TFS: I've used it successfully, and I like the built-in ability that TFS gives you to move seamlessly from the TFS environment to Excel, Project, SharePoint, and so forth.

Answer 30

We use Scrum for Team System w/ the TaskBoard application for a scrum board feel and functionality.

TaskBoard is in it's first release and has some kinks to work out, but if you're a Microsoft Team Foundation Server user and want to use the Scrum for Team System process template, I highly recommend using TaskBoard.

Answer 31

XPTracker is very complete:
- User stories
- Sparklines burndown - Integrated wiki for docs
- Attachements to stories
- Lucene based search
- Ultra easy to install, no dependencies
- Free

Definitely worth a look !

Answer 32

Our team uses Rally. http://www.rallydev.com It seems to work good.

Answer 33

If a hosted solution works for you then Pivotal Tracker is the closest I have seen to electronic index cards and is very well implemented (and free). I especially like the sparse beauty of the UI (as simple as possible but no simpler).

I'll echo the other advice that you should find the tool that matches your process but, if you find that after using index cards and a whiteboard, you want /insert usual reasons for electronic solution here/, Pivotal tracker is probably what you are looking for.

Answer 34

We tried RallyDev, VersionOne and Scrumworks. All of them are comprehensive tools but they they all took too long to set up and there were a lot of features we did not need. I went back to using Excel sheets as I was looking for something simple, till I came across ScrumEdge.

ScrumEdge is really easy to set up and has its own built in scrum community where users can discuss their scrum related problems. All those who use excel sheets i would definitely recommend that you check out ScrumEdge. Best of all, there is a free plan available.

Answer 35

We use mingle for all our development projects, the user experience is very intuitive and the flexible view format really give it an edge over the competition. We have also started to use the tree structure and this has allowed us to implement automated rollup reports to track estimates and actual hours on all stories and cards. Now we spend more time on the interesting work and less time fighting spreadsheets and the like.

Answer 36

Have you tried Agilo for Scrum? http://www.agiloforscrum.org it is free and Open Source, it has a nice integration with SVN that speeds up a lot the usage from the development team perspective. It is based on Trac that is a very wide spread tool for Agile Project Management and adds nice charts and: - Sprint Backlog with automated Burndown Chart - Product Backlog with customizable sorting criteria, and types - Statistics Charts on Team Velocity, Commitment, Estimations - Integration with SVN and code browsing, very cool updating tickets through SVN comments - Drag & Drop to manually reposition items in the backlogs - Import & Export from CSV - Ticket linking and grouping for better traceability and organization

We like it a lot :-)

It is rumored that a whiteboard and enterprise features will come soon, at least this is what appeared already a couple of times on the Agilo User Group (Google Groups)

Answer 37

Mostly excel. Otherwise Product Owners will complain ;-)

We also use TFS with the Scrum Template

Answer 38

I believe Banana Scrum is worth looking at. It has some really nice features. You can try it out without registering.

Answer 39

Agilo for Scrum Pro is a new version of Agilo for Scrum and offers a functional online whiteboard (Planning Board) Its only 78 Euro per team and month including professional support.

Answer 40

Take a look at http://pangoscrum.com As simple as possible and with a friendly interface, PangoScrum does not intend to replace the task board or change the team's Scrum process.

Answer 41

Pivotal Tracker is the best Agile project management tool in my eyes. It's simple, easy-to-use, and free.

Answer 42

ScrumPad is a simple yet complete in functionality. It uses convention over configuration. So, it is easy to get up to speed. Also it does not forces you to work in a certain way. The only requirement is that you do iterative, incremental development. I highly recommend it.

Answer 43

I'd like to recommend Scrumpad. It has a simple and friendly interface. I've been using Scrumpad to manage sprints and stories for over a year, really like it. It's easy to use and to manage stories within a specific sprint or cross multiple sprints. It also provides the traceability among stories if one story got split or descoped.

Answer 44

Scrum Tool is an easy desktop app (Windows/Linux) to support the traditional white board based sprints. It is under development, so developers are very open to suggestions.

Answer 45

I am here to promote the tool, I am developing: XPlanner Plus. You all must have heard of XPlanner, so my tool is based on it. It's very simple for understanding, open source, scrum tool. It's ready for use and the current releases can be downloaded on sf.net New features are under intensive development.

Answer 46

we use XPlanner+ and develop it :) XPlanner-Plus is an open source tool for agile, scrum teams. It's based on XPlanner and has a new and improved features, such as fancy design, email notifications for tasks' status and others. Demo is available.

Answer 47

How about iMeta Agility a Scrum Management Tool. It is a rich internet tool written in Silverlight. It is free! iMeta Agility is focused around simplicity and usability. Importantly the team that are developing the product are delivering functionality based on community feedback. So you can influence the future development direction.

Answer 48

There's a new tool on the market you may also want to checkout - Bright Green Projects. It's clean, easy to use and cheap. http://www.brightgreenprojects.com

Answer 49

We use ScrumPad for our project management and we are pretty much fine with it. It has a lot many features under its hood, and is worth trying for. Some of the interesting things are that it got wiki, supports almost all the Scrum functionalities, supports pair programming, and has a responsive customer service :). The quick tour videos will allow the starters to get the hang of it.

Answer 50

Hi, I am looking for some agile tools. Have you ever seen a comparison matrix about agile tools that can you recommend me? I would be very grateful. Thanks.

Answer 51

Have a look at Express. It is open source and completely free. The interface is clean and easy to use and it has a nice feature set. It is a Flex RIA client with a Java backend which can be deployed on any Tomcat instance.

Answer 52

1. Build a GREAT task board.
2. Run fantastic design sessions.
3. Create Big Visible Charts.
4. Try anything to promote discussion about your solution.

Resort to supporting tools when:

• Your team is distributed.
• You need to create printed reports.
• You have a large or multiple backlogs.
• You project is on hold while the team fight another fire.
• Your tracking long term metrics over multiple projects / programmes.

Search the web (and this question) for the current favourites, they are all still evolving.

Resist the natural techy impulse to favour tools over talk. We’re all guilty at some level.

Answer 53

We have used WRAP (WoodRanch Agile Projects) and we love it. It has

1. Story authoring and breakup
2. Backlog management
3. Defect and tasks entry and management
4. Iterations and release planning and tracking
5. Release planning and tracking
6. Powerful reporting and dashboards

It is feature rich and low cost. Comes with 5 users free (SaaS model). Check out at www.agilewrap.com

Answer 54

I'll mention AcuNote here. It integrates with some of the most popular code management and bug tracking tools. Up to Five(5) users are free.

Answer 55

Do you know about ScrumNinja? Easy to learn, intuitive to use, reduces complexity in project management, facilitates team interaction, communication.

Check it out. Free trials, SaaS or Download. http://www.scrumninja.com

Answer 56

At Pyxis Technologies we develop Urban Turtle an Agile Project Management Tools for TFS. Integrated in web access, Urban Turtle give you a planning board and a task board directly in your web browser. The version 2010 will also work with Conchango, MSF Agile and others templates

Have a look at Urban Turtle at send me your comments at [email protected]

Thanks !

Answer 57

Hi,

Take a look to iceScrum, our tool offers everything that is in Scrum :

• The role management: Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Team member and StakeHolder
• The product backlog management with advanced features for prioritizing stories
• Scrum lifecycle including a roadmap view
• Release planning
• Sprint backlog, as a task board facilitating the Scrum ceremonial
• Management of impediments
• Chart production such as burndown charts, velocity charts, cumulative flow diagram

And offers others agile practices like :

• Roadmap
• Vision
• Features
• User stories
• Acceptance tests associated to stories
• User roles

• Planning poker

  And of course it's free and open source ;-)

Answer 58

Hi,

i'm using Scrum2Go on my iPhone since a few days and it seem pretty useful. You get states of your backlog items quickly and the burn down chart is also a nice feature.

Answer 59

Hi,

You should check out Scrumers. It's still in private beta but you can request an access. Everything that is in Scrum is in Scrumers, plus a great UI. For instance, during sprints, you can simply drag and drop your tasks represented as post-its in the appropriate column. I let you see the video tour for the basics.

And there's an iPhone app on the road, to sync your projects OTA with the Web app.

Answer 60

Try Kunagi. http://kunagi.org

Answer 61

I'd like to add ScrumNinja to the list.

Answer 62

I like WRAP (WoodRach Agile Projects) a lot. It is intutive, esay to use and comes with 5 users free pack. It is worth giving a try. Checking out at www.agilewrap.com.

Answer 63

I'd recommend Bright Green. It can be used for any flavour of Agile - XP, Scrum, Lean Kanban. http://www.brightgreenprojects.com

Answer 64

I recommend Rally Software. The product is being continuously improved and we've been very happy with it!

Answer 65

We use VisionProject. It has a great way of working with Scrum with a Scrum board that works perfect (even though they don't call it scrum board). It is very easy to use and one of the most flexible and user-friendly solutions I have found. VisionProject also has a great implementation of working with ITIL in their helpdesk module. So, what we actually do is combining ITIL and Scrum in the same system. This works great and is clearly recommendable.

Answer 66

Assembla

they have a really nice integration between the source code repository and the ticketing system. it includes wiki, burndown charts, scrum reports and a lot more features for management, collaboration, distinct repositories and ticketing. it worths to get the paid version.