After adopting to agile environment an organization face various challenges like coordinating and managing multiple groups, locations and projects. Project complexity is further intensified because agile environments continue to change plans and priorities in real time. In order to handle such complexity, it is important to select right Agile Tools. These tools also ensure the success of agile development activities.
In many organizations the team tends to start with agile attempt with a series of traditional tools thereby lacking important features like facilitating agile planning and tracking by releasing or iteration. These tools also don’t enable easy changes to plans and priorities and lacks using features like user stories, product backlog or requirements as primary planning asset.
Compared to different tools for different phases, agile development utilizes a tightly integrated process that organizes high-level feature planning, detailed task and test planning, defect and test management and complete project tracking. Teams must never store project in multiple tools as it prevents accurate and real-time visibility.
Selected Agile Tools must provide support for cross-functional agile teams. This means tools must aid in consolidating and facilitating project planning, tracking customer requirement, product management, project management, programmers, testers and other stakeholders in single environment for better consistency and collaboration.
In terms of organizational structure, terminology, product planning, project scheduling, tracking and reporting each organizations has its own way of operation. Thus, the selected tools must be flexible enough to let organizations define, plan and organize based on their unique requirement.
The necessity to provide team members with simple and straight forward planning, tracking and reporting system is important for extensive distribution. Similar to agile development the simpler Agile Tools the better. Attention must be paid to ensure that tools are never replacing the benefits derived from daily planning, personal communication, product reviews and retrospectives.
Agile Tools must be capable to handle sophisticated project structure, thousands of features and defects as well as the potentiality of performing unlimited tasks and tests. Due to more and more adoption of agile development environment the market provides with team-based tools that claims to have stunning features, but in case of extensive deployments the main concern must include easy to use and support for infinite items flowing through an agile life cycle.
Defining organizational needs before opting for agile management tools only ensures sharp and precise selection along with best use of the available resources. Comparing several tools also helps in selection process in locating the best tools for agile projects.
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