Agile Tool Selection

What tools do you use for Large Scale Agile?

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Tool Need Identified
Background
Multiple Agile tracking tools used by early Agile teams
ISG transition to Agile beginning Sep 22nd, 2010
Needs
Need to have an Agile management tool for new Agile teams to use
Need to be able to roll-up product status across ISG product lines

Decision Space
The full ALM tool space is shown at left
This tool decision was focused on the highlighted areas
It is assumed that Documentation Management and Software Development will be handled externally to the tool

Agile Tool Team Composition
Goals
Include at least one member from each team already doing Agile in ISG
Include at least one member from each Agile role (scrum master, product owner, developer, tester)
Keep team to a manageable a size
Team

Decision Analysis Process
The team elected to use the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to conduct the decision analysis. This uses the following method to reach a decision.
Identify decision criteria
Identify alternatives
Do pairwise comparisons between the criteria in order to determine the relative weight of each
For each criteria, do pairwise comparisons of all alternatives to get the criteria score for each alternative
Summarize criteria contributions for each alternative
The alternative with the highest score is the recommendation

Identification of Candidate Tools
Goals
Review all Agile tools currently in use within ISG
Review market leaders
Candidates
Quality Center (Hewlett-Packard)
Jira (Atlassian)
Team Foundation Server (Microsoft)
DevSuite (TechExcel)
Rally (Rally Software)
VersionOne (VersionOne Software)
6

Tool Needs
The team identified the five categories of needs shown below. Each category is further broken into individual criteria in the following pages.
Planning and Tracking
Story Definition
Development Integration
Quality Assurance
Infrastructure Operations
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Planning and Tracking Criteria
The Planning & Tracking criteria focus on how scrum masters, product owners, and managers plan future work and track the current status of development.
Criteria
Agile Project Management
Agile Reports
Hierarchical Stories/Projects/Roll-Up
Multi-Team Program Management
Story, Task, and Kanban Boards
*See notes section for details
8
Planning &
Tracking
Story
Definition
Development
Integration
Quality
Assurance
Infrastructure
Operations

Story Definition Criteria
The Story Definition criteria focus on how product managers and owners enter the details of work to be completed for the coming iterations.
Criteria
Story Capture
Acceptance Criteria
Attachments
Tasks/Sub Tasks
UI Spec
9
Planning &
Tracking
Story
Definition
Development
Integration
Quality
Assurance
Infrastructure
Operations

Development Integration Criteria
The Development Integration criteria describe how well the candidate tool integrates with other tools commonly used for application development.
Criteria
IDE Integrations
Open API
Source Control
Integration Across Functional Subsystems
10
Planning &
Tracking
Story
Definition
Development
Integration
Quality
Assurance
Infrastructure
Operations

Quality Assurance Criteria
The Quality Assurance criteria detail how the testers manage defects and planned tests.
Criteria
Defect & Defect Suite Management
Automated Test Management
Integration with Quality Center
Manual Test Management
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Planning &
Tracking
Story
Definition
Development
Integration
Quality
Assurance
Infrastructure
Operations

Infrastructure Operations Criteria
The Infrastructure Operations criteria focus on how the tool is brought in and maintained within the organization.
Criteria
Cost
Availability
Hosting Options
Configurations
Intangibles
12
Planning &
Tracking
Story
Definition
Development
Integration
Quality
Assurance
Infrastructure
Operations

Overall Category Weighting
13

Criteria Weighting By Category
14
Infrastructure
Operations
Planning & Tracking
Quality Assurance
Development
Integration
Story Definition

Candidate Tool Analysis
Quality Center
Pros
Already used widely within IVS
Very strong test and defect functionality
Cons
Very poor Agile UI (planning, stories, tasks, status)
Limited Agile functionality (boards, reports, resource planning)
Poor responsiveness
Jira
Pros
Good implementation of common Agile items
Very strong development integration tools
Cons
Fair Agile UI (planning, stories, tasks, status)
15

Candidate Tool Analysis (cont)
Team Foundation Server
Pros
Across-the-board development integration
Acceptable implementation of common Agile items
Cons
Only integrated with Microsoft development tools
Did not provide good method for non-developers to access Agile information
DevSuite
Pros
Across-the-board development integration
Used in other Deere factories
Cons
Very fragmented UI requires use of 4 separate tools to track Agile development
Somewhat limited Agile functionality (poor taskboards, prioritization, test plans)
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Candidate Tool Analysis (cont)
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Rally
Pros
Very strong Agile UI implementation
Included all targeted Agile functionality needs
Cons
Only fair support for development integration
VersionOne
Pros
Strong Agile UI implementation
Included nearly all targeted Agile functionality needs
Cons
Less intuitive story hierarchy
Less functional test cases

Final Scoring Results
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Final Score Contributions By Category
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Conclusions
As the team reviewed tools, it became apparent that the tools built to do Agile from the ground up provided better functionality and user interface than those tools that added Agile to existing functionality.
The team feels confident in the decision result that identifies Rally as the strongest candidate. Rally demonstrated strength in all targeted areas of Agile functionality and proved to be the quickest tool to both learn and use.
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Chad “Agile Ninja” Holdorfwww.scaledagiledelivery.com
Hi, my name is Chad Holdorf and I call myself the Agile Ninja because I hate being called a Process Pro. The reason I hate the title Process Pro is because I love delivering products. In 2008 I was asked to lead a team in the development of a software project using Agile. My response was, “WHAT?!?!” Today I’m proud to say I am all in on Agile | Lean Methodologies and teach it every day.
I work for a John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group in Des Moines, IA as an Scaled Agile Coach. I’m not sure that is the right title, but my role is to roll out and support Agile at all locations.
The challenges I blog/tweet/talk about are related to how John Deere is tailed around hardware and waterfall processes. This drives me bonkers when we try to make are software follow a hardware process!
I’ve been applying Agile practices since Feb08. As an Agile Coach, I orchestrated the first large-scale Agile transformation within the company. This project included over 200 people and 30+ managers and was initiated, successfully, just four months prior to a critical product launch. I specializing in organizational change, optimization, efficiency and business value delivery, I make organizations better. Today 600+ people are practicing what I call “Scaled Agile Delivery Methodology” within John Deere.
It’s never been a better time to be a part of John Deere and we are going places in the world of software development! If you want to join Deere, you can see the job listings here.

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Agile Tool Selection

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