Recommended agile development task management tools
In agile development, the development schedule, visualization of each flow, understanding of current progress, and sharing of information are essential for efficient development.
Also, compared to waterfall development, agile development has more plans and design documents, and efficient document management is also an important factor.
This page mainly explaines about the management tools required in the actual agile development site.
The Importance of Task Management in Agile Development
As a characteristic of agile development, features are listed, and those features are progressed by repeating “requirement definition”, “design”, “development” and “test”. Agile development also has the advantage of being able to flexibly respond to changes in the specifications of each function, to frequently meet with customers, and to proceed with efficient and speedy development.
On the other hand, compared to waterfall development, which executes a once-decided process, agile development tends to complicate the management of processes, schedules, progress, etc., and it is essential to introduce tools to efficiently manage them.
By introducing a management tool, it is possible to capture the flow of scrum members, visualize schedules and progress, share information smoothly that leads to efficient progress of agile development.
There are various tools that are introduced in agile development, and it is necessary to decide which tool is best for your team. Choose the development tools that work best for you.
Types of management tools available for agile development
Accurately visualizing and sharing information in agile development is directly linked to operational efficiency. Whether progress management can be smoothly realized in the field of agile development has a great impact on the outcome of the project.
The tools used in actual agile development sites can be broadly divided into the following 2 types.
What are project management tools?
Project management tools are management tools used to manage each process in a project.
It can visualize the flow for understanding the process, the progress of each member, and share the information of team members. By using a project management tool, it will be possible to match the recognition between members and efficiently proceed with the project.
What is a document management tool?
Managing the ever-increasing number of documents in each flow of agile development is also important to efficiently proceed with the project.
In agile development, compared to waterfall development, the divided development process is repeated, so there are more documents such as plans and design documents, and there are more opportunities to review previously used documents.
Efficient management of documentation paperwork is an important factor in agile development.
By using document management tools, you can quickly find the documents you need when you want them, which is very useful for smooth agile development.
Considerations when choosing management tools for agile development
Jira Software is a well-known task management tool for agile development.
We often hear from students of our Scrum Master course that they use Jira Software as well.
Joe Justice, a world-renowned agile coach, recommends Miro and Mural, which he also uses, when a student in his class asks him which tools he recommends for agile development.
Joe summarizes why he recommends Miro and Mural, which are online whiteboard tools, and points to note when choosing tools for agile development.
Why a tool that can be used like a whiteboard is recommended
Why does Joe recommend the whiteboard tool?
As the adoption of agile development progresses, more and more agile tools are becoming available, but most of them are tools for managing backlogs.
In actual agile development, there are many cases in which collaboration in events, backlog refinement, sprint planning, daily scrums, sprint reviews, and retrospectives is required in addition to the backlog.
The virtual whiteboard tool (online whiteboard tool) is highly flexible, and it is easy to apply to such agile development scenes.
Considerations when choosing Agile tools
As the adoption of agile development progresses, the tools for agile are also increasing.
There are three things to keep in mind when choosing an agile tool:
- Ease of collaboration
- Can be easily used in parallel by the entire team at the same time as stakeholders
- It should be a tool that can share facts and events with high flexibility
Recommended project management tools for agile development
Followings are the recommended management tools that are used in actual agile development sites.
Miro
Miro is an online whiteboard tool, butyou can also use a rich templates such as mind maps and kanban. It is a widely used tool in Agile and Scrum development.
Joe also recommends Miro as a tool of choice for agile development.
Overview/What you can do
- Large number of templates for a variety of uses.
- The feature that automatically and automatically corrects a freehand drawing is useful.
- Can be integrated with apps.
- Images and files can be uploaded from cloud storage such as Dropbox.
- Requires some IT literacy.
- Language on whiteboard cannot be Google translated.
Rate plan
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | – |
| Team+ | $8/month | – |
| Business | $16/month | – |
| Enterprise | Contact | – |
Mural
Overview/What you can do
Like Miro, another popular online whiteboard tool is Mural. Mural means wall painting, and it has the feature that you can stick sticky notes on the whiteboard and write letters on it to use it like a mural. It is possible to see visually who is currently working on which task in Agile and Scrum development sites, how the progress is.
- Large whiteboard can be subdivided and individual frameworks can be set up.
- There is a lock feature to prevent others from moving stickies and shapes.
- Images and files can also be uploaded from Dropbox and other cloud storage.
- Images and files can be uploaded from cloud storage such as Dropbox.
- Available with a browser.
- If IT literacy is low, it takes time to get used to using it.
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | – |
| Team+ | $12/month | – |
| Business | $17.99/month | – |
| Enterprise | Contact | – |
Jira Software
JIRA is a representative project management tool in agile development. It is characterized by being able to check the list of tasks by using the scrum board, confirming tasks among members, matching recognition, and understanding what to do. JIRA has many introduction examples as a project management tool in the field of agile development in Japan.
Overview/What you can do
- A task management tool that is often introduced in agile development sites.
- It is highly customizable and can be customized according to the characteristics of the project.
- Supports scrum and kanban boards.
- Can integrate with agile boards, backlogs, roadmaps and reports.
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | – |
| Standard | ￥900/month | 〇（7 days） |
| Premium | ￥1,730/month | 〇（7 days） |
| Enterprise | Contact | – |
Redmine
Redmine is a project management tool available as open source software. It has a lot of functions that can be used for agile development, such as schedule management linked to the calendar and Gantt chart.
Overview/What you can do
- Open source project management tool.
- Redmine online question session is also held.
- In particular, the feature to share the progress of tasks within the team is easy to use, and it is also useful in agile development sites.
Rate Plans
Open source software, freely available for download.
Trello
It is a simple and easy-to-use Kanban-style task management tool that is convenient for small-group projects and individual task management.
Overview/What you can do
- freemium offer
- Ability to link calendar and task deadlines
- Boards can be created for each project
- Tasks can be managed with cards and can be used intuitively
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | – |
| Standard | $5/month | – |
| Premium | $10/month | 〇 |
| Enterprise | $17.50/month | – |
Backlog
Overview/What you can do
- Intuitive UI design
- Standard plan or higher is required to use Gantt chart
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 〇（30 days） |
| starter plan | $35/month | 〇（30 days） |
| standard plan | $100/month | 〇（30 days） |
| Premium plan | $100/month | 〇（30 days） |
| Platinum plan | $175/month | 〇（30 days） |
Lychee Redmine
Overview/What you can do
- Project management tool based on Redmine
- Wide range of free plans (task management, Kanban)
- Excellent customizability is also suitable for agile development
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | $0 | – |
| Standard | $8/month | 〇（30 days） |
| premium | $12/month | 〇（30 days） |
Recommended document management tools for agile development
Confluence
https://www.atlassian.com/ja/software/confluence
Developed by Atlassian who develops JIRA It also has the advantage of being easy to introduce because it can be integrated with JIRA.
Overview/Benefits
- Collaborative editing with real-time simultaneous editing of documents
- Good search feature
- High degree of freedom in setting permissions
- Can be integrated with with JIRA and easy to introduce
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | JPY 0 | – |
| Standard | JPY 660/month | 7 days |
| Premium | JPY 1250/month | 7 days |
Qiita Team
Overview/What you can do
- Developed by Qiita, a community service for developers
- Act as an information sharing tool
- It is also important to devise ways to use tags to make them easier to find in searches.
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | JPY 500/month(tax included) | 30 days |
| Small | JPY 1,520/month(tax included) | 30 days |
| Medium | JPY 4,900/month(tax included) | 30 days |
| Large | JPY 7,050/month(tax included) | 30 days |
| Enterprise | JPY 15,300/month(tax included) | 30 days |
All plans have a 30-day free trial.
Kibela
Overview/What you can do
- In addition to document management purposes, it is easy to use as a communication tool and information sharing tool between internal members.
- Find the information you want with the advanced search function
Rate Plans
| Price | Trial | |
|---|---|---|
| Community plan | ￥0 | – |
| Standard plan | JPY 550/month(tax included) | 14 days |
| Enterprise plan | JPY 1,650/month(tax included) | 2 months |
Summary
We have introduced recommended tools for agile development system management and document management.
Each tool has advantages and disadvantages, but the important thing is how to use the tool.
JIRA has been introduced in many agile development sites, but the popular agile tools are characterized by a wide range of features such as richtemplates and the ability to integrate with applications.
A common question in scrum master classes is which tools are recommended for agile development.
Joe Justice himself recommends Miro and Mural as whiteboard tools.
Most tools are for managing the backlog, but it is the flexible virtual Because it’s a whiteboard.
We hope that this article will help you choose the most appropriate management tool for your agile development.
- Recommendations for Agile and Scrum training
- What is a Scrum Master? Roles, things to do and differences from PM
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