Welcome to an overview of open source agile project management software tools. This site has been created by Targetprocess, a company that has been developing commercial software for agile project management and bug tracking since 2004. We hope that you find required tools among open source projects, but if not, visit our website to check out the cool features of our professionally maintained agile software.

Agile Glossary

Scrum
Kanban
Extreme Programming (XP)

Acceptance Testing
Backlog
Burn Down Chart
Daily Meeting
Effort Estimates in Abstract Units (Points)
Impediment
Iteration
Iteration Planning
Iteration Velocity
Kanban Board
Release Planning
Task Board
Test-Driven Development
User Story
Workflow
Work-in-Progress (WIP)

IceScrum

Interesting web-based tool. The tool is under active development (latest version May 11, 2010). It has some really nice concepts on board. Planning poker powers user stories estimation. Stories represented by cards and there are several useful filters presets. The downside is usability.

I've reviewd IceScrum 2 years ago, so have a good background to compare its present state. I should say usability problems are still there. Starting a new project is a no-brainer. Wizard has some complex steps, but in general you may skip them and have a new projects with dozen of clicks. Releases and iterations are generated automatically, which is nice. But then you are starting having troubles. How to add a user story? You click Backlog and there is no add link. You click around and still nothing. Then you click Sandbox link and see Create a new user story button. So user stories can be created in a Sandbox section only. That is counterintuitive.

OK. You created several user stories, but don't see them in a Product Backlog. It appears you have to Accept them.

Then there is a real problem — planning your first sprint. I am an experienced user, I evaluated dozens of agile tools, but this one got me stuck. I spent 20 minutes to figure out how to add a user story to a sprint. It appeared you should have an estimate, otherwise it is impossible to plan sprint. It is written in small letters un help section. Moreover, there is no easy way to add an estimate. You click Edit on user story and there is no such field. Somehow I moved mouse cursor over ? sign on a story card and it appeared you can edit it.

I don't know how a mere mortal can guess how it works. When you know the way, it doesn't look too complex, but novice users will have huge problems.

IceScrum is quite powerful if you do everything right, but it is very constraining. You can run Scrum projects following the rules, but Kanban is not supported. In general, the conclusion I made 2 years ago didn't change:

IceScrum is hard from the beginning, but it has nice features set and can be adopted by agile team. However, it is one of the best open source agile project management software.

IceScrum web site: www.icescrum.org

Pros		Cons
Responsive UI Good charts: Parking Lot, Burn Down Chart Good Pojects/Releases/Sprints concept support Drag and Drop for Task Board and Estimation Release/Sprints Timeline		Usability problems Forceful way to do things Works for small teams only, no multiple projects support

Rating

Functionality		Usability		Performance
****		***		****

Targetprocess is an agile project management tool. According to the latest customer survey, the key differentiators of this tool are:

• Targetprocess perfectly reflects the Agile methodology with full support for Scrum and Kanban
• Targetprocess is flexible and highly customizable to support custom project management approaches and custom workflows
• The tool stands out through its modern and clean user interface
• Amazing customer support. Very responsive and helpful staff

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