The Best Agile Tools for Project Managers

Introduction 

Are you employed by a fast-paced organization where everyone alternates between primary and secondary responsibilities? If you want to maintain the balance, you may be debating whether to adopt an Agile project management approach. 

If you’re a project manager, you’ll likely understand the need for tools if your team relies on them to support their workflow. Using Agile project management tools, teams can finish tasks quickly without sacrificing the project’s quality. Let’s first define the Agile methodology before providing a list of Agile project management software. 

What Are Agile Tools? 

If you take the word “Agile” at its literal definition, it means “able to move quickly and easily.” The same meaning applies when we discuss Agile in terms of project management or software development. 

Agile is a project management approach that is primarily used in the software development industry. The division of a large task characterizes it into numerous smaller tasks and the pairing of these with brief and incremental work phases known as sprints. 

Rapid and early delivery, frequent reassessment and adaptive planning, continuous improvement, and flexible response to change are the main goals of this approach. 

Assuming you now understand the fundamentals of Agile, let’s explore the advantages of Agile project management tools. 

Superior Product: The overall quality of the finished product is higher because testing is integrated into the project execution phase in Agile project management. The client continues to be involved in the development process and can request changes based on current market conditions. Agile is also an iterative process. 

Customer Satisfaction: Customer retention is higher in the Agile model because the customer is constantly involved in decision-making. Adaptability and flexibility are hampered in the traditional framework because the client is only involved in the planning stage and has no participation in how things are done afterward. You deliver value to the customer and guarantee that the final product is actually in line with their requirements by keeping them informed and making changes in response to their feedback. 

Increased Flexibility: Agile gives project teams unmatched flexibility when it is properly implemented. Teams work in shorter bursts, with the product owner’s ongoing input and participation serving as a supplement. Changes in other project management methodologies are typically time- and money-consuming. 

But with Agile, the project is divided into manageable, flexible sprints that allow the team to implement changes quickly. One of the main reasons why dynamic organizations favor using Agile in their projects is its unmatched flexibility. 

Enhanced Team Spirit: Agile teams have more autonomy and authority over their decisions because they are self-organized and self-managing. The project manager keeps sponsors and management from interfering with the team. 

The teams’ cross-functional makeup also aids in the members’ acquisition of new project management competencies and advancement within their current positions. The group frequently meets to discuss problems and developments, which improves collaboration. Agile fosters a community where teams can get along well and have adaptable team structures because the team size is kept to a minimum. 

Higher Quality Metrics: Agile teams use metrics that are more accurate and pertinent than those employed by traditional methodologies when estimating project time and cost and tracking project performance. While metrics in the Waterfall methodology show how closely the project is tracking against the estimated cost and time, Agile focuses on delivering results and optimizing performance. 

Agile generates crucial metrics, such as lead time, cycle time, and throughput, which aid in assessing the team’s performance, locating bottlenecks, and making data-driven decisions to address them. 

List Of Best Agile Tools For Project Managers in 2022 

Although Agile project management has been around for years, thousands of businesses and managers still struggle to make the switch from traditional to Agile project management. 

Here is a list of the best Agile tools for project managers can use to accelerate decision-making: 

Atlassian JIRA: 

Atlassian JIRA is one of the most well-known Agile project management tools ever created.  

UI/UX designers, development teams, and IT professionals are the main target audiences for Atlassian JIRA. It includes fully adaptable kanban scrum boards that you can use to fit into the overall workflow of your team. These boards can be used quickly to see all of the tasks involved in a sprint. 

Along with a straightforward backlog management system, burnout charts, cumulative flow diagrams, velocity charts, epics reports, and sprint reports all provide a real-time picture of where the team is at during any given sprint. Using the JIRA query language (JQL), you can also control custom filters. 

Additionally, you can integrate it with developer tools and choose from over a thousand different add-ons based on your team’s requirements. 

Asana: 

Asana is a top collaboration tool that communicates expectations to Agile teams and sets them. Users at all levels can keep others updated on their progress with the help of the embedded messaging system and process management, which uses rules, forms, templates, and approvals. 

Other Agile collaboration tools on this list often integrate with third-party messaging services like Slack, but Asana has native messaging and communication features. However, take note that Asana has a Slack integration. 

Even though Asana does provide a free version of its software, that version’s features are constrained and exclude things like reporting, an admin console, and private team management. 

Trello: 

Trello is one of the most well-known and popular project management tools available. Since many tools you use already have integrations with Trello, people are at least somewhat familiar with its user interface. For instance, Trello can be linked to Gmail and the Pomodoro time management system via Chrome plug-ins. 

The organizational model of Trello is based on Agile project management’s Kanban framework. Trello can, however, also be utilized with the Scrum framework. 

Trello uses a board of drag-and-drop cards arranged into lists to represent each project visually. You can attach files and add comments, set due dates, apply checklists, and integrate other apps with Trello cards. Being managed by Atlassian, the software is a sibling of Jira. 

Axosoft: 

Axosoft is a Scrum-based Agile project management tool. Teams can use the interface to make plans and work well together to identify and resolve problems as they arise. 

Emails are converted into support tickets by a Help Desk feature. Customers can communicate requests and feedback directly with the team through their own portal. This open dialogue can help customers feel involved in the process while saving your team members a lot of time. It also includes a team wiki, which provides plenty of space for you to share detailed project information and specifics. 

Axosoft assembles the backlogs for each product. It also provides an overview of which team member is in charge of each task and how it is going. Users can assign tasks, bugs, and user stories and mark them as complete using the Release Planner. You can see from the burndown charts how quickly the team is achieving the project’s objectives. There is also a card view in the Kanban fashion. 

ProofHub: 

Leading companies use ProofHub, an intelligent and feature-rich Agile project management tool. This collaborative tool allows teams to easily share ideas, gather documents, start conversations, and advance. 

The software is pre-integrated with all the features and tools you’ll need to successfully complete projects using the Agile methodology. It is also suitable for managing your projects using other project management techniques, such as getting things done (GTD), critical path method (CPM), etc. 

You can use the Gantt charts and Kanban boards provided by ProofHub to streamline all project work and organize tasks. With Kanban boards, you can specify every stage of a project’s workflow and track tasks as they move between stages in the form of cards. On the other hand, Gantt charts make it possible to see a project’s timeline and guarantee the timely completion of all project work. A Gantt Chart can be used to schedule tasks, link milestones to tasks, specify task dependencies, and identify who is in charge of each task. 

Kanbanize: 

Kanbanize is a virtual workspace that incorporates Kanban-style features and business automation. This Agile tool can be used to manage your software development projects, programs, tasks, and portfolios because it was designed with scalability in mind. 

This Kanban tool is the go-to option for Agile teams and businesses looking to prioritize work more effectively, manage multiple projects, and streamline their business processes. 

The system allows team members to organize and visualize their daily work. They can organize high-level projects and Scrum team initiatives, decompose them into manageable tasks, visualize dependencies, and develop numerous workflows for cross-functional teams. 

GitHub Project Management: 

This Agile project management software integrates with many other tools, making it a useful tool for development teams since it allows multiple team members—from your developers to the product owner—to work in the same code simultaneously. 

With GitHub, you can have a private area for each team member and a public area where the public can visit and offer feedback on your code. 

GitHub also includes many Agile project management tools to assist project managers in keeping track of what team members are working on. 

Hive: 

Hive is an Agile project management tool with an impressive user base that includes Google, Starbucks, Toyota, and Comcast. It’s a tool that takes great pride in being able to assist teams working in hectic, quick-paced settings. Every business should use it, from startups and creative agencies to marketing and operations teams. 

Regarding tracking projects, it offers a variety of flexible views, including Gantt charts, a Kanban board, table views, and calendar views. Hive’s numerous integration options, which include Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, JIRA, and more, are another advantageous feature. 

Conclusion 

As a project manager, you are aware that meeting deadlines are of utmost importance. These Agile tools can increase productivity and skill for both you and your team. An Agile certification verifies your understanding of Agile and Scrum practices, which are always in demand for Agile project managers.