Agile has long been one of the most in-demand software development approaches. Its popularity has spread to non-software development projects, too—including project management, of course. This increased demand has spawned a plethora of Agile project management tools designed to support Agile teams.
But, with so many solutions to choose from, it can be challenging to select the right tool for your needs. We explore the various features you should consider when selecting a tool to support your Agile team.
But First, What Is Agile Project Management?
Agile project management is an iterative and flexible process for delivering a project throughout its life cycle. An Agile approach embraces making several iterations or incremental steps toward the completion of a project.
This approach involves constant collaboration with stakeholders and making continuous adjustments as you go along.
The Agile process is commonly used in software development, but project managers can also apply its principles to non-technology-related projects.
The Agile Manifesto of Software Development, created in 2001, includes Agile’s four central values:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
There are many benefits to using the Agile project management process, which explains why the approach is so popular. Agile teams are more likely to deliver higher-quality products faster, with greater predictability. The process allows project managers to develop their products, hitting all milestones while remaining flexible to react to constant change.
Why Do You Need an Agile Tool?
Having the right Agile tool can help you maximize the benefits mentioned above. In addition, the tool will help you achieve a lot more from your project management process.
An Agile tool integrates all Agile functions into a single resource. You can manage your burndown charts, iterations, backlog prioritization, user stories, and collaboration from one place. When everything is in one place, all project stakeholders know where to find it and can stay on top of their roles within the project.
An Agile tool enables real-time collaboration and communication. Teams can swiftly identify, communicate, and manage risks as they occur.
Agile tools aggregate various metrics to help teams track and measure how quickly work moves through the process. This way, teams can identify opportunities for meaningful improvement.
7 Tips for Choosing an Agile Project Management Software
While having an Agile tool comes with many benefits, you want to make sure you choose a solution that suits your business needs and methodology best.
Look out for these seven attributes when you’re trying to make a decision.
1. Facilitates collaboration and communication
As the Agile approach involves constant iterations, teams need a reliable way to communicate and collaborate on necessary changes. The solution you choose should allow any stakeholder to observe and participate in the conversation as the project moves through its various phases.
2. Provides a central repository
Your tool should be able to support all Agile project functions. A single tool creates one source to store and find essential project information that stakeholders need to make decisions. Further, when all your content is stored in a single database, you can view multiple projects simultaneously and perform cross-project reporting and analysis.
3. Generates analytics
Analytics regarding your projects enable project stakeholders to view the project management process in real-time and conduct post-mortem evaluation. Your tool of choice should allow you to generate analytics to see how much time individual tasks took to complete and why they took as long as they did. Analytics will also help you know which expectations project teams met and which were not.
4. Offers workflow features
Workflow features such as Gantt charts and Kanban boards make it easier to see how teams work on tasks. Team members can see assigned tasks and the corresponding deadlines. As the project manager, you can see when milestones are completed (or missed) in real-time. This kind of visibility helps everyone stay on the same page and facilitates good decision-making and efficiency throughout the project.
5. Tracks project status
The entire Agile project management process is highly dynamic. Tasks are going to be at various levels of completion throughout each phase. It’s vital to have a tool that can maintain all of this data in real-time and make it easy to view your current status at a glance.
6. Easy to scale
When purchasing an Agile tool, remember that your project team may grow. Other departments may also want to utilize the same tool for their projects. With that in mind, choose a solution with broad capabilities so that it can seamlessly grow with your team and is fully scalable across the organization.
7. Integrates with other applications
In case you have other tools you use such as a CRM, having a solution that seamlessly integrates with these other tools makes your work easier. When you’re able to integrate all your tools into one solution, you and your team don’t have to log into several different solutions. Instead, you can access what you need from one tool.
Why Mission Control is great for Agile Project Management
So where can you find this unicorn tool with all the key attributes in one solution? Right here at Mission Control!
Whether you are just starting your Agile journey at the team level or scaling Agile across your organization, Mission Control is the solution you need. This is one of the most flexible project management tools available. You can adapt it to fit the needs of various teams in different departments, from development, customer success, sales and marketing to HR teams.
Our tool enables you to plan your projects, manage your resources, manage billing, keep track of project expenses, assign tasks and deadlines, and so much more from a single platform.
Our software has broad features that enable different teams to manage individual projects and collaborate.
You can easily integrate the software with Salesforce and other business tools you might already be using. This way, you can utilize all your existing tools from one place.
We also offer an in-built communication tool that makes communication and collaboration between teams easier. All stakeholders, including clients, can easily access and share project information within the tool.
Are you ready to take the leap and start using Agile project management tools?
Request a demo to see how Agile project management software like Mission Control can induce more flexibility and efficiency in your projects.
