More Cloud Services – Manage Agile Process through Pivotal Tracker

Posted: May 1st, 2010 | Author: Julio Hernandez-Miyares | Filed under: Cloud Computing |

What will they think up next that can be put on the “Cloud”.? Well that is tongue and cheek in in a way. Probably any software service can be adapted to form a service in the Cloud. The Cloud simply defined as something somewhere obviating me of worrying about it’s operation and the only interest and concerns are

• it’s reliability (there when I need it)
• scalability (ramps up with my needs)
• semblance of privacy controls (only those that I grant access get it).

Last week the individual writing up the product requirements for the Social Gaming Mobile app that we are working on at Jittr.com suggested we consider using Pivotal Tracker for managing requirements. Pivotal Tracker is an online tool to manage the Agile methodology with the normal adherence to Stories, Backlogs, Current Sprint Log for accepted and inflight work and the sundry reports that attempt to depict software development productivity such as Velocity ie how many story points are completed in a given sprint development cycle.

It also has an REST based API specification which I have not had the opportunity to try out that allows exercising it’s capabilities and the project information contained therein increasing the flexibility exponentially if the need to integrate with other project based tools arises.

As a very small boot strapping start-up, we are not interested in using this tool to the extent a large company with more defined processes and much larger team and reams of executive or program management who spend their lives monitoring how productive their technology development teams are operating. Nevertheless it’s core capabilities to define stories and share in a centrally accessible location and allow updates whether on the product or development perspective and all for the grand sum of $0 makes it a useful tool in our arsenal to communicate and execute quickly.

After a few weeks, will update this post not only with additional reflections on the quality and efficacy of this tool but also the extent it makes sense to use the discipline of Agile for a startup fitting the profile of Jittr.