Thursday, September 22, 2011

Choosing open source / free Scrum tools

I would like to have a free Scrum tool which have these features for planning & progress reporting:
• virtual task board (to show which user stories in the current sprint / sprint plan, release plan)
• burndown chart
• backlog (prioritized list of user stories)
• velocity chart
• Gantt chart / iteration timeline

I found at least 2 tools that fulfill those criteria:
• Icescrum http://www.icescrum.org/
• Agilo http://www.agile42.com/cms/pages/agilo/
Agilo has a better documentation than Icescrum and also offers integration with trac & svn, but you need to pay for Pro license for using the virtual board (& many other handy functions), about 800 euros for 10 users/year. So finally I decide to use the Icescrum instead. Icescrum is just a web application (a war file) that you can install for example in Tomcat. You can testdrive the icescrum here: http://www.icescrum.org/demo/

Some screenshots from http://www.icescrum.org/:

Burndown chart & activities


Virtual task board: release plan /sprint plan


Which agile/scrum tools/project management tools do you use? What are the advantages/disadvantages of those tools? Please write your comments.







Source: Steve's blog http://soa-java.blogspot.com

References:

Comparing Open Source Agile Project Management Tools by Brad Swanson
http://olex.openlogic.com/wazi/2009/comparing-open-source-agile-project-management-tools/

Scrum and XP from the Trenches by Henrik Kniberg
www.crisp.se/henrik.kniberg/ScrumAndXpFromTheTrenches.pdf

Agile Estimating and Planning

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