What project management software do you recommend for a flexible approach?

Question

In the place where I work, we move on to a more flexible approach to project management.

To support project management tools, I have used MS Project and Target Process in the past. But I think both of them have serious flaws:

• MS Project is not very intuitive and therefore difficult to use, especially for novice users. This is not flexible.
• The target process only looks halfway. For instance. Users can set their administrator privileges. The size of user stories is measured in hours, not in the dimensionless size, which I think is a really bad idea. The user interface feels overblown and overly complex without supporting keyboard use only.

We also use Jira to track problems, and I think that you could change it and add some custom fields / reports to make it a flexible project management tool.

So my question is: what software tools do you use for flexible project management and what do you like or dislike about this?

Addendum: I know that physical tools, such as a whiteboard or post-it, are in some ways an ideal tool , but if you want to get an overview of what is happening in a complete company, it is rather cumbersome to run from office to office. to look at whiteboards or get people to copy it in another form of document. A similar argument applies if you are working in a setting where the client is not on the site.

I will try to list some functions that I find interesting:

• easily accessible for management, client, team potentially from different sites. It almost requires a web application.
• to customize the application to suit the taste of flexibility preferred by the team or company.
• it should allow several people to access it in parallel. For instance. a developer marking a task / history as completed should not block the client from adding a new task. This pretty much eliminates Excel.
• Good keyboard-only usability, at least for things like updating a lot of stories or adding a lot of stories.
• The ability to integrate with Jira (the entries there should become tasks or something in the system, the changes should be synchronized, or at least impossible if they are not synchronized), and SVN (fixing comments with the history identifier should appear in the tool)
• Ability to integrate with other systems using the Java API.

Answer 1

There is the value of using a tool to make your flexible project visible when it’s not pragmatic to get into the team room. I would not recommend using a tool other than large visible diagrams in the command room, instead of large visible diagrams. When a person must turn to the tool to pull out information, and not see that the information is constantly displayed in the room for the team, it loses its effectiveness.

Of the tools we used, my comments are as follows

• Mingle is the programmable and most customizable, the biggest learning curve, but you won’t get stuck in the corner, and the learning curve is quickly picked up by the developer.
• Rally - does what you need out of the box. Provides flexible practice and has a small learning curve. The reports are good.
• The first version is a Swiss army knife made of flexible tools. Lightweight, full of features, an excellent query tool for extracting project data, it is necessary to ensure that the hosting service provides the required performance.
• XPlanner is free, simple, but not developing, easy for the team, less capable in the reporting department.
• Excel works fine, most people start with it, and the file can be sent to WIKI, which can be downloaded and viewed by anyone.

Consider licensing. A number of tools can publish results to HTLM, which can be read from WIKI as a dashboard report. If you need to control access to data, then granting a license for tools or providing access to WIKI should meet your needs.

Answer 2

We mainly use boards and post-its. If we use software, we usually use Trac or a simple wiki.

Our experience shows that using a project management tool makes your project less agile. The tool aims to become the focus of the entire development process, and its data is more important than the actual software.

I really recommend using a physical tool, not a software one. It makes everyone focus in the same place and is much more accessible and affordable, even the simplest software equivalent.

Answer 3

Redmine, it is easy to use and contains enough features.

Answer 4

What specific problems do you encounter with your current project management software that you want to address. What special taste of flexibility do you go over? The first bullet is shaky ... in that novice users should not be involved in project management. Other arguments read as follows: "MS Project should not behave like MS Project"

If you want to simplify the lagging tool for the product that you seem to be looking for. Use a spreadsheet and see if it works. If not, go to the tricky ones.

Is there a similar thread in SO ... dupe or is this thread significantly different? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/426458/recommendations-for-project-management-software-for-scrum

Answer 5

I really use Atlassian JIRA for all my Agile management. And with their recent acquisition of GreenHopper , they have fully integrated SCRUM in project management. It is only available in beta right now.

Answer 6

My team uses a rally. I also used VersionOne a few years ago, but I think the rally is better. I am not a specialist in all the functions, but I think that he does most of what you need. Don't even try the MS project ...

Answer 7

Axosoft OnTime

Answer 8

CounterSoft Gemini (at least get 5 user licenses for free)

Answer 9

A new tool has appeared - Bright Green Projects. This allows you to capture and prioritize requirements, build estimates, manage iterations, track problems, etc. Good interface and very easy to use: http://www.brightgreenprojects.com