January 2024

Design Thinking and Business Agility

Design thinking has become the go-to approach to developing products that are more customer-centric. The design thinking process exposes customer needs on a more human level by developing stronger user empathy and experimenting in phases to get a process or design just right. It turns out that agile and design thinking have a lot in common, and melding the two together can add tremendous value to agile practices. 

For example, project teams can build extra time into sprint activities to better understand customer pain points and improve the overall customer journey. Taking time up front to build user empathy and getting quick design feedback will help streamline prototyping and testing, as well as helping visualize a solution that can set the team on the right path. Within the agile environment, companies should consider ‘dual track agile’ or ‘staggered sprints’ that include user empathy, ideation, and feedback loops as an adjacent part of the agile process. A design thinking mindset delivers a more customer-centric strategy from the beginning without impacting the speed of the agile process.  

Scaled Agile and Scrum Approaches Continue to Dominate

The scrum development approach empowers project managers to effectively coordinate the activities of cross-functional teams and produce working code in phases at the end of each iteration or sprint. Companies today are now turning toward scaling their scrum activities to deliver greater value and improve collaboration. The idea of extending agile from individual scrum teams to large-scale programs is gathering steam. Smaller teams have reaped the benefits, so they are comfortable with the basic principles. Now (usually with executive management’s guidance), those tenets can be scaled to larger projects. 

As for the most popular frameworks, SAFe® is rated as the top-scaled agile methodology last year, according to a survey from StateOfAgile.com, outpacing the Scrum@Scale framework by 19 percent. Leading SAFe approaches are the most complete for large-scale Agile projects and support the successful transformation of organizations into Lean-Agile enterprises. SAFe scrum masters are highly valued as they are trained to plan and execute projects in the context of the enterprise, not just individual sprints. Scale is the name of the game in today’s business environment to ensure departments are all working from the same playbook. 

AI and Machine Learning Support Agile Too

Even when agile approaches are running at full steam, there is still a great degree of analytical labor that must take place by project teams, such as testers and product developers. AI and machine learning algorithms are playing an increasingly important role in data analysis in the project and development environments. They provide real-time data and lightning-fast analytical capabilities, for example, to offer clear predictions of when project phases will be complete. That’s especially important when projects get close to the release phase, and the eyes of multiple executive constituents are glued to the schedules. 

AI and machine learning provide additional benefits to agile as well, including:

• Providing more precise insights and cleaner processes for creating and testing programming code. 
• Reviewing code with better accuracy to identify and eliminate bugs. 
• Integrating with innovative smart technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, robotic process automation (RPA), quantum computing, and other cutting-edge technologies to speed development time and get products to market faster. 

Choosing the appropriate Agile tool to match your business needs and methodology is crucial. Your decision-making process for a solution that supports your team and their Agile methodology can be aided by the five features listed below:

• Encourage communication and collaboration
• Accountability and History Tracking
• Central Searchable Storage
• Scaling Ability
• Analytical Services

As a project manager, you know that getting everything done on time is a top priority. These Agile tools can help you and your team become more productive and more nimble. 
Project managers are always in high demand, and an Agile certification validates your knowledge in Agile and Scrum practices.

1. Icescrum

Created by a French company called Kagilum (KAnban-aGILe-scrUM) SAS in 2011, Icescrum is a free and open source solution for teams of any size. This tool is compatible with Linux, Windows, and Mac—and integrates with a variety of popular apps like Box, Excel, Dropbox, GitHub, Google Drive, Slack, and more.

Cost: free download. The cloud version starts at $35 USD per month.

Got 6 minutes? Check out this video: it’s a sample of our course Introduction To PMI-ACP® (Agile Certified Practitioner) Training:

2. Taiga

Awarded Best Agile Tool 2015 by the Agile awards, and Top 11 PM Tools 2016 by Opensource.com, Taiga offers better functionality than many paid tools, including backlogs, sprints, Kanban boards, and QA, along with the ability to import from Trello, Jira, Asana, and Github.

Cost: Public projects are completely free; private projects start at $19 a month.

3. Scrumpy

The unique selling point of Scrumpy software is that it allows long-term story views and is completely written in Java. It is specifically designed to help a product owner maintain a meaningful long-term backlog of user stories.
Cost: Completely free.

Explore our library of Agile and Scrum articles. Happy reading!

4. Hansoft

Hansoft’s fast and intuitive interface, powerful find/report tools, and a host of other features can run different project management methods depending on your project. Hansoft is scalable and configurable since it was inspired by the Project Management Institute (PMI), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and Large Scale SCRUM (LeSS). Its core feature critical for planning and tracking is the backlog, which can be refined by any custom attribute to your deliverables.

Cost: Completely free for up to 2 users. It allows unlimited projects and programs.

5. YouTrack

We found that YouTrack has the best reporting feature of any tools on this list. Whether you’re looking for burndown charts, timeline reports, and more—all available on a live dashboard. Newest features include improved, project-based swimlanes, advanced visibility options, and time report improvements. 

Cost: Free for ten users and 5GB of storage. Paid options are based on the number of users and start at $20 per month.

6. Scrumblr

Scrumblr is an open-source scrum application that enables real-time collaborative support for managing an Agile sprint board. It is created with node.js, jquery, CSS3, and WebSockets (using socket.io). It has an intriguing user interface that attempts to replicate a real board.

Post-its can be placed on the collaborative whiteboard known as Scrumblr. In addition, you can split the whiteboard so you can manage an exact task board equivalent. This tool is also helpful for retrospectives. 

7. ScrumDo

Users may plan, monitor, and improve their work processes using the Agile and Kanban work management and collaboration application known as ScrumDo. The cloud-based platform’s robust features and intelligent notifications enable users to maintain tabs on everything in their organization.

Users can be informed about everything going on in the company, including project statuses and due dates, via Slack and email with ScrumDo’s smart notifications. Users can plan iterations and prioritize tasks using the hierarchy of work feature in ScrumDo, and they can track their projects’ status in real-time using the project timeline. Additionally, the user can manage each task’s subtasks and save details about its features.

8. ScrumDesk

ScrumDesk is a project management tool. ScrumDesk is an online application for Agile product management and Scrum project management for teams utilizing Scrum or Kanban. With ScrumDesk, we hope to give Agile teams the ability to oversee product development from conception to completion.

Small or medium-sized teams that are working on one or more projects concurrently are the main emphasis of ScrumDesk. The tool should offer excellent transparency for the team’s daily work and the backlog. ScrumDesk encompasses all aspects of a business. It assists product owners in quickly understanding the backlog and determining priorities. 

9. Kanbanchi

With its integrated project management tool, Kanbanchi enables teams to work more efficiently. In addition, it offers a disciplined methodology for setting up your work to make your daily tasks more productive. 

The only online project management, task management, and collaboration tool, including a Kanban board, Gantt chart, and time tracker, is Kanbanchi for G Suite. A sequence of all your tasks and activities is visualized on project boards with lists and cards. It enables real-time team collaboration and visual project management.

10. Pipefy

Pipefy enables top-tier managers to design and manage effective workflows. For teams like finance, human resources, and customer service, the no-code workflow management tool boosts team productivity, centralizes data, and standardizes processes. As a result, those making service requests, processing those requests, and overseeing the operation are all more effective.

Pipefy improves speed, boosts visibility, and produces outcomes of higher quality using ready-to-use, customized processes and a no/low-code platform. It transforms the team digitally in a matter of hours rather than weeks or months.

11. VivifyScrum

With the help of collaboration boards for Scrum and Kanban, users of VivifyScrum, a web-based Agile project management tool, can plan, arrange, manage, and complete projects all in one place. In addition, the platform provides management tools, such as time management, invoicing, customer base, team engagements, project calendar, reports, and more, to meet the demands of both small Agile teams and large businesses.

12. KanbanTool

The Kanban Tool is a program for using the Kanban methodology to manage tasks and projects. The Kanban technique is based on two principles: a graphic, clear picture of the workflow and a limitation on the number of functions that can be carried out concurrently. Kanban Tool is the original program for setting up your Kanban board and tracking your work process step by step. As a result, clients and team members can effortlessly communicate in real time by exchanging tasks, information, and comments at any time and location.

13. Targetprocess

To help software development organizations manage their projects more simply, TargetProcess offers Agile project management solutions. An easy-to-use yet effective solution for Agile project management is TargetProcess. It is easy since it has a user-friendly interface and provides a complete Scrum and Kanban process by default for software development organizations transitioning to Agile . It is effective because it enables the customization of item content, status, and workflows, promoting the development of a flexible approach to visual project management.

14. VersionOne Lifecycle

VersionOne is a cloud-based Agile application lifecycle management (ALM) tool that aids enterprises in involving stakeholders, tracking progress, and reporting on diverse software portfolios, programs, and projects. It offers features of Agile  development tools connected to Scrum and Kanban methodologies, such as project boards with targets, problems, and faults, spring plans, project road mapping, release planning, and test management.

15. Zoho Projects

A well-known cloud-based project management application is Zoho Projects. You may use it to support your Agile software development workflows because it has many project management tools. By itself, Zoho Project is capable of setting up fundamental features like timesheets, Gantt charts, and resource use.

16. Agile fant

Agile provides the fundamental characteristics of Agile project development tools connected to the Scrum and Kanban methodologies in both open source and cloud-based versions. The tool offers functions including storyboards, burn-up, and burn-down charts, and timeline views. In addition, numerous cutting-edge capabilities for iteration management, project management, product management, and portfolio management are offered by Agile fant.

17. Kanbanize

Agile project management software called Kanbanize creates a virtual workspace by merging business automation and Kanban-style features. You may use this Agile solution to manage your software development projects, programs, tasks, and portfolios because it was designed with scalability.

18. Yodiz

Yodiz is an easy-to-use yet complete Agile tool that aids in managing Agile projects of all levels of difficulty.

The best and most effective approaches to complete story-related Agile tasks are outlined by Yodiz, which simplifies the management of Agile projects.

By using well-planned and practical approaches to provide a great user experience, it lessens the difficulty of handling project and team-related data.

A few of its many unique features include simple user story management at the release and sprint levels, thorough reporting, current performance indicators, issue tracking, dynamic chat, and connection with other applications.

1. Is DevOps a coding job?

DevOps is not primarily a coding job, but it does involve coding to a significant extent. DevOps professionals use scripting and automation to streamline software development and deployment processes. They create infrastructure as code (IaC) and develop scripts for CI and CD pipelines. While coding is essential, DevOps is a broader role that focuses on collaboration, automation, and improving the efficiency of software development and IT operations processes.

2. Is AWS required for DevOps?

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is not strictly required for DevOps, but it is one of the popular cloud platforms commonly used in DevOps practices. DevOps engineers often work with cloud services to deploy and manage applications. However, other cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform are also used. The choice of cloud platform depends on the specific needs of the organization.

3. Is DevOps a good career?

DevOps is an excellent career choice for individuals interested in the intersection of development and operations in IT. The demand for DevOps professionals has steadily grown as organizations recognize the value of automation, collaboration, and faster software delivery. DevOps skills are transferable across various industries and can lead to high-paying positions. However, the rapidly evolving technology landscape requires continuous learning and adaptation. Those willing to invest in their skills and stay updated can find rewarding and fulfilling careers in DevOps.

4. Which programming language is best for DevOps?

There isn’t a single “best” programming language for DevOps, as the choice of language depends on the specific tasks and tools in use. However, some languages, such as Python, Ruby, and Shell scripting, are commonly used in DevOps automation. Python is particularly popular for its simplicity, readability, and extensive libraries, making it a versatile choice for tasks like writing automation scripts, creating configuration management code, and interacting with APIs.