Very few Agile teams are all together co-located in one place. For most of us there are some barriers – walls at least or oceans at most. We are faced with situation when team is split in few different locations. Being Agile (building agile team) is obviously harder in such setup – communication is critical and there are tools that can help to make it more effective, but this is not our topic today. Our topic is more concrete: different tools are used to share information, progress statuses, etc. It can be simple wiki, it can be Google Docs, it can be separate dedicated specialized tool to visualize Scrum or Kanban board (for example). All tools suck, we will check which suck less.

1. Overview of virtual agile tools
Kirill Klimov
Agile Eastern Europe, Kiev, Ukraine, 24.09.2011

2. Universe of available tools

3. Lists of Agile tools
• List of tools at Mike Cohn’s User Stories site (60+ tools)
• Agile Management Tools list at (60+ tools)

4. Bad news
There is no universal swiss-army
electronic Agile tool of general purpose

5. or there is..?

6. Team distribution

7. Team distribution
collocated team

8. Team distribution
collocated team
collocated team with off-site PO

9. Team distribution
collocated team distributed team
collocated team with off-site PO

10. Team distribution
collocated team distributed team
collocated team with off-site PO

11. Team distribution results
distributed team collocated team
31%
36%
33%
collocated team
with off-site PO

12. Team size
>15
2-4
28%
22%
11-15 9%
21%
21% 5-7
8-10

13. Features comparison

14. Features comparison
1 = not important
2
3
4
5 = very important

15. Features comparison
Important stuff
200
150
100
50
4,2
0
1 2 3 4 5
1 = not important not very
2 important important
3
4
5 = very important

16. Features comparison
Important stuff Unimportant stuff
200 200
150 150
100 100
50
4,2 50
1,6
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
1 = not important not very not very
2 important important important important
3
4
5 = very important

17. Features comparison
Important stuff Unimportant stuff
200 200
150 150
100 100
50
4,2 50
1,6
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
1 = not important not very not very
2 important important important important
3
4 Does not really care
5 = very important 200
150
100
50
3,0
0
1 2 3 4 5
not very
important important

18. Features comparison
Important stuff Unimportant stuff
200 200
150 150
100 100
50
4,2 50
1,6
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
1 = not important not very not very
2 important important important important
3
4 Does not really care Either like a lot or do not like at all
5 = very important 200 200
150 150
100 100
50
3,0 50
3,0
0 0
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
not very not very
important important important important

19. Features: web access
200
160
120
80
4,4
40
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

20. Features: Scrum support
90
72
54
36
3,8
18
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

21. Features: Scrum support
90
72
54
2-4 36
3,6 3,8
18
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

22. Features: Kanban support
90
72
54
36
2,6
18
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

23. Features: Kanban support
90
72
54
2,8
36
2,6 2,6
18
2,3
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

24. Features: iteration planning
150
120
90
60
4,1
30
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

25. Features: release planning
80
64
48
32
3,7
16
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

26. Features: project planning
80
64
48
32
3,6
16
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

27. Features: project planning
80
64
48
8-10 32
3,9 3,6
16
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

28. Features: time management
70
56
42
28
3,3
14
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

29. Features: time management
3,2
70
3,5
56
3,1
42
28
3,3
14
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

30. Features: time management
3,2
70
3,5
56
3,1
42
28
2-4 3,3
3,0 14
... 0
1 2 3 4 5
>15 not important very important
3,7

31. Features: integration with version control,
bugtrackers, continuous integration systems, etc
70
56
42
28
3,5
14
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

32. Features: integration with version control,
bugtrackers, continuous integration systems, etc
70
56
42
3,3
28
3,6 3,5
14
3,4
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

33. Features: simplicity vs complexity
90
72
54
36
3,1
18
0
1 2 3 4 5
simple and powerful and
easy to use configurable

34. Features: simplicity vs complexity
90
72
54
2,9
36
3,3 3,1
18
3,1
0
1 2 3 4 5
simple and powerful and
easy to use configurable

35. Features: customizable workflow
90
72
54
36
3,5
18
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

36. Features: customizable workflow
90
72
3,4
54
3,8 36
3,5
18
3,3
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

37. Features: reporting & analysis
80
64
48
32
3,5
16
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

38. Features: reporting & analysis
80
64
48
2-4 32
3,0 3,5
16
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

39. Features: hosting
120
96
72
48
1,7
24
0
1 2 3
Hosted at 3rd party
Self hosted
(or at some cloud)

40. Features: low price or totally free solution
100
80
60
40
3,2
20
0
1 2 3 4 5
not important very important

41. collocated team with off-site PO

42. “Ideal” tool portrait
Web based self-hosted tool, with customizable
workflow, so configurable to some degree and
still simple to use. Should have support for
iteration and release planning as well as for
Scrum.
ved
pro
ap

43. Now we are using
others
3% 10%
4%
4%
4% 33%
9%
33%

44. Now we are using (depending on team size)

45. Now we are using (depending on team size)
2-4
3%3%
3%
3% others
5%
16%
11%
20%
38%

46. Now we are using (depending on team size)
2-4 others
5-7
3%3% 9%
3% 3%
3% others 4%
5% 4%
16% 6%
11% 42%
20% 31%
38%

47. Now we are using (depending on team size)
2-4 others
5-7
3%3% 9%
3% 3%
3% others 4%
5% 4%
16% 6%
11% 42%
20% 31%
38%
others
15%
4%
6%
9% 42%
8-10 25%

48. Now we are using (depending on team size)
2-4 others
5-7
3%3% 9%
3% 3%
3% others 4%
5% 4%
16% 6%
11% 42%
20% 31%
38%
others
15% others
4% 36% 29%
6%
9% 42%
36% 11-15
8-10 25%

49. Now we are using (depending on team size)
>15
others
21%
6% 36%
36%

50. Now we are using (depending on team distribution)

51. Now we are using (depending on team distribution)
others
18%
3%
3%
6%
32%
9%
29%

52. Now we are using (depending on team distribution)
others others
18% 3%
8%
3% 3%
3%
6%
32% 5%
5%
32%
9%
8%
29%
35%

53. Now we are using (depending on team distribution)
others others
18% 3%
8%
3% 3%
3%
6%
32% 5%
5%
32%
9%
8%
29%
35%
others
10%
3%3%
4%
6%
32%
11%
32%

54. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
2%
2% others
3%
9%
3%
4%
6% 45%
25%

55. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team size)

56. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team size)
2-4 others
20%
7% 31%
15%
26%

57. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team size)
2-4 others others
20%
17%
7% 31%
15%
31% 53%
5-7
26%

58. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team size)
2-4 others others
20%
17%
7% 31%
15%
31% 53%
5-7
26%
8-10 others
23%
8% 42%
8%
19%

59. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team size)
2-4 others others
20%
17%
7% 31%
11-15 31% 53%
15% 5-7
26%
others
31%
46%
23%
8-10 others
23%
8% 42%
8%
19%

60. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team size)
2-4 others others
20%
17%
7% 31%
11-15 31% 53%
15% 5-7
26%
others
31%
46%
23% others
8-10 others
7%
7%
23%
11%
8% 42% 44%
8%
30%
19%
>15

61. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team distribution)

62. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team distribution)
others
13%
4%
4%
4%
6%
47%
23%

63. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team distribution)
others
others
13%
9%
4% 4%
4% 4%
4% 6%
6%
47% 9% 38%
23%
30%

64. In 3-6 months we are considering switching to
(depending on team distribution)
others
others
13%
9%
4% 4%
4% 4%
4% 6%
6%
47% 9% 38%
23%
30%
others
13%
4%
7%
48%
28%

65. Tool selection strategy

66. Tool selection strategy
• Do You really need some tool? Sure?

67. Tool selection strategy
• Do You really need some tool? Sure?
• Pick 3-4 features most important for You! Don’t think of everything You might
need some day at the future.

68. Tool selection strategy
• Do You really need some tool? Sure?
• Pick 3-4 features most important for You! Don’t think of everything You might
need some day at the future.
• Pick 2 tools covering most (80-90%) of your requested features.

69. Tool selection strategy
• Do You really need some tool? Sure?
• Pick 3-4 features most important for You! Don’t think of everything You might
need some day at the future.
• Pick 2 tools covering most (80-90%) of your requested features.
• Try 1st of them. If it looks OK – forget 2nd one and just use it. Best is the
enemy of the good.

70. Tool selection strategy
• Do You really need some tool? Sure?
• Pick 3-4 features most important for You! Don’t think of everything You might
need some day at the future.
• Pick 2 tools covering most (80-90%) of your requested features.
• Try 1st of them. If it looks OK – forget 2nd one and just use it. Best is the
enemy of the good.
• If it’s really bad, stick with 2nd option.

71. Thank you!
kirill@kserver.kiev.ua
www.linkedIn.com/in/kirillklimov
Blog: agileguy.posterous.com
Slides: slideshare.net/f0g
Twitter: @f0g