Everyone admires the concept of “agile,” but how can you implement it in your organization? And how can you ensure that the agile tools support the procedures and methods you plan to use?
There is a vast range of agile software available. Perhaps there are too many. Everyone manages projects somewhat differently, which is why it’s essential to experiment with various tools to see which ones work best for you.
Although there are many excellent agile project management tools available, the following is a thorough evaluation of some most prominent agile project management tools that made our list:
Trello
Trello is so common among agile teams that you’ve almost certainly already joined up and experimented with it on your own. The whole product is built on Kanban, which makes getting started simple. In each project, your board may include several columns, referred to as lists and cards, each of which represents a job. When you wish to demonstrate progress, you slide a card from one column to the next.
It is ideal for small teams that need not more than a kanban board to manage their work. Moreover, it may not be the most important choice on the market if you want to move beyond essential task management.
Trello’s agile features include the following:
- Boards
- Labels
- User-defined fields
Pricing
Pricing ranges from free to $20.83 per user per month.
Jira
JIRA software is the most widely used agile tool for software development teams. It was initially designed for the problem and bug tracking but may quickly adapt to software product development. Due to the almost limitless possibilities of JIRA software, it has become the standard option for most businesses.
However, their unlimited list of features and old UI and UX often obstruct development for many teams. You must configure it properly for teams to utilize it successfully.
JIRA has the following agile features:
- Different types of issues, such as user stories and bugs
- Boards
- Workflows
- Backlog
- Roadmap
- Numerous chart styles for reporting
Pricing
Monthly subscriptions range from free to $14 per person.
Monday
Monday is a dynamic platform that offers an easily configurable framework for teams using agile and other hybrid methods. Because they’ve eliminated some of the unnecessary features included in conventional project management software, monday.com is an excellent option for teams seeking a clear, straightforward focus on the task at hand.
When you use this application, you organize projects on a board and then add the steps necessary to complete them. It’s comparable to a spreadsheet—but far more attractive, with various views (Kanban board, Gantt-style charts, list views), alarms, notifications, assignees, and automation. Additionally, a customized task board is included for tracking task status, assignee, and due date.
You can monitor the status of your agile projects using monday.com’s project dashboards, which aggregate data from various boards to provide a visual representation of work in progress. Additionally, you’ll discover simple file sharing and communication tools like mentions, comments, and hashtags.
In general, this is a flexible, simple-to-learn technology that places a high premium on customer service (customer assistance is accessible 24/7 through phone or email).
Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, and Typeform are just a few of the monday.com integrations available through Zapier.
Pricing
Pricing for monday.com begins at $17/month for two users.
Zoho Sprints
Zoho Sprints is an agile project management solution that enables an iterative and collaborative work style. It is equally effective when utilized by experienced agile specialists and teams entering on their agile growth strategy.
A logical backlog simplifies planning and prioritizing work items in the form of user stories, tasks, and defects. Additionally, Scrumban teams may define work-in-progress limitations, sort and visualize swimlane progress, and monitor sprint highlights on dashboards. Work items that are not completed may be relegated to the backlog or distributed among current and future sprints.
The Global-View enables you to monitor progress across all of your projects. Each project has its dashboard, which gives project managers and scrum masters a bird’s-eye perspective of its development. Moreover, teams iterate their sprint planning with the assistance of advanced analytics from velocity charts, burnup and burndown reports, and cumulative flowcharts.
The project dashboard provides real-time information on all project activities. Teams may arrange sprint planning, review, and retrospective meetings using the Meetings module. All users can record billable and non-billable hours, and you may use the global timer to initiate a timer for any work item. The timesheet reports summarize log hours by duration, sprint, work item type, and user.
You may use the built-in Jira Import wizard to import issues from Jira. Integrations with technologies such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket are built-in for software development teams. Additionally, there is a Marketplace with many pre-built add-ons. Additionally, you may create and sell extensions.
Pricing
Zoho Sprints provides a 15-day free trial (no credit card required). Zoho Sprints offers a single subscription plan beginning at $12 per month for 12 users, payable yearly. Additionally, there is a freemium edition available for up to five users and five projects.
Gitlab
GitLab is a cloud-based DevOps tool that assists companies in optimizing their operations, making it a popular tool for agile software development.
This agile software solution enables developers to produce software more quickly, thus lowering costs and risk involved with security flaws while improving productivity.
Features of the software include the following:
- Workflow management
- Kanban boards
- Multiple collaboration tools
- Reporting and analytics capabilities
- Workflows for approvals
- Portfolio management
Pricing
- Bronze or beginning plan is $4 per month per user
- Silver, or premium plan is $19 per month per user
- Gold or ultimate plan is $99 per month per user
Selection Criteria for Agile Tools
The finest agile project management software has the following critical components. I consider factors other than its feature set, such as its user interface and usability (how simple is it to learn how to use it?). Additionally, I consider the tool’s value proposition about its pricing—how its price compares to similar products with comparable features and capabilities.
When assessing the top agile tools for this study, I looked for the following characteristics:
- Task management – Kanban or Scrum boards containing projects, task lists, and all the associated files and conversations, as well as time and cost records.
- Backlog management tools — Polling, labeling, prioritizing, and re-prioritizing user stories and issues are all included.
- User narrative tools — The most fundamental tools are cards on boards, which are available in every online project management software. However, more complete agile systems offer additional user story capabilities, such as specialized boards for mapping user stories and specialized features for user story estimation.
- Team collaboration – Keep local and dispersed teams informed of progress and exchange work lists, comments, and assignments.
- Agile reporting and analytics — At the absolute least, tools should provide an agile dashboard that displays typical agile charts like burndown and velocity. Agile reporting elements that are more sophisticated include progress reports for stakeholders, team performance assessment, and financial reporting tools.
Finally, I do an integration check. I want to ensure that the tool works effectively with the appropriate tools. In agile tools, which are often used for software development, I prioritize integrations with software development and problem management systems. Remember that teams working in non-development settings will not need this kind of connection and will benefit more from connectors with other work applications such as Slack, Google Apps, and Adobe.