My last post was about deciding on what Scrum tools you'd be using before you jump into the process. I imagine readers like myself who are new to Scrum or are constantly looking at ways to do it better. So for those folks, I'll say that in the past three weeks I've learned, definitively, that the currently available Scrum tools won't force you into implementing Scrum more efficiently. They're all good tools that require you, quite frankly, to know what you're doing.
So I'll try to break this down into three areas:
- Scrum Setup
If you're just starting out with Scrum, by all means, use a whiteboard and Post-It notes. Use whatever tools your most experienced Scrum team has been using. Getting started and learning the process is the most important step - don't wait for that perfect tool. I just wasted three weeks doing just that.
Yes, there are tons of websites out there, but I have to say that the Scrum for Team System Process Guidance is my favourite place for information on actually implementing Scrum. It's concise and covers everything. Very nice.
- Enterprise Tools
On a related note, my team has decided to go with Scrum for Team System as our enterprise-worthy 3rd party Scrum solution. It's not as robust as our corporate internal tool and Visual Studio doesn't give a quick "at a glance" status of the guts of the project. So we're waffling a little. But the TFS templates are free and the web portal is beautiful. We'll be going with it on a trial basis for a next-gen project.
- Informal Tools
For sheer ease of use, I really like Scrum Edge. It's super simple, quick, and extremely intuitive. I can't recommend that anyone host information from their job on someone else's server. But for projects that I'm personally implementing I'll be using it.
All of our tools investigations came from the posts of Boris Gloger, so I'll give a shout-out to him for his excellent tools reviews. From here on out I'll detail how I run a Scrum project rather than talking about tools. Tools are a bit of a black hole, the benefits of Scrum are totally independent of tools. No matter what you're using, if your customers are happy, you're happy.
Next up: Product Planning Meeting
Technorati tags: Scrum Scrum Tools