Can you recommend a free Task Board/Burndown tool for Windows?

Question

There's not a lot to add to the subject really.

I am after a free task board/ burndown reporting tool for Windows.

Answer 1

Well, without knowing more about your situation, I have to highly recommend a wall of index cards and a handdrawn chart on flip chart paper. Works much better than any software in the standard situation.

If you really have to use software, there is none that I could recommend unreservedly, let alone a free one. You might want to keep in mind that some of the commercial ones are free for open source or academic projects, too. Which one's right for you will depend, besides other things, on how much you want it to define your process.

Answer 2

You might consider creating your own solution using a spreadsheet. That way you get low overhead on data entry and as much reporting capabilities as you want, without having an external tool define your process.

Especially on single-person projects (as this appears to be from the comment on Ilja Preuß's answer), I find that a simple spreadsheet actually works better for me.

I keep all my tasks in one workbook, and the formulas that pull out interesting data and calculations in a separate workbook.

Answer 3

If you're willing to host your tool,

• TargetProcess (http://www.targetprocess.com/Product/agile_tour.aspx)
• XPlanner(http://www.xplanner.org/)

If not,

• Pivotal Tracker (http://www.pivotaltracker.com/)
• ScrumWorks (http://danube.com/scrumworks/basic)

All are either free or have a free version.

Answer 4

Depending on your real needs, solutions range from :

• hand-written cards complemented with a manually drawn burndown chart as big visible chart as recommend by Ilja
• spreadsheet-based list with automatic burndown graph generation (example)
• online tools such as scrumy, scrumpad and skinnyboard
• local application with web access
  • free ScrumWorks basic, Icescrum2
  • or commercial ScrumWorks Pro ProjectCards, or, as Eliza recommended, TargetProcess

Remember however the Agile manifesto is recommending to favor people over tools

"Individuals and interactions over tools and processes".

I'd recommended starting small, perhaps with a spreadsheet if you insist on automatic burndown charting.

Answer 5

That is exactly what Scrumy.com is. It is a whiteboard with sticky notes. The pro version has a burndown.

Answer 6

Check out SeeNowDo at www.seenowdo.com

It's a free online taskboard for distributed Agile teams. It's pretty cool and provides convenient features like 'always-on' and 'instant-sync' capability. It also has some cool ways of managing the taskboard layout once you have alot of tasks on it. Best of all, it's completely free.

Answer 7

• Agilo

Answer 8

• Itteco

Answer 9

I made a basic plugin that can be inserted in google wave and be used as a taskboard. More details in http://agilebooknote.blogspot.com/2009/11/taskboardy-available.html. Cheers, -fede

Answer 10

Try Mingle. It is free for upto 5 users.

Answer 11

Open Source app: http://taskboard.cognifide.com/

Fast, tidy tool :)