Target Process 2.7: Agile Project Management tool for Distributed Teams

Posted by Mark Levison on Jan 21, 2008 09:00 AM

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Target Process 2.7 has been released, the tool has been mentioned here previously for its 2.0 and 2.3 releases. Target Process is an Agile Process Management tool that automates many of the tasks associated with an agile project. It helps simplify planning, tracking and QA. It provides real time reports, historical data and allows upper management to see the status of several projects at a glance. A number of new features have been added since we last wrote about it, including Visual Iteration Planning and Program Level Release Planning.

Visual Iteration Planning

This clever feature displays a large box that shows you much "room" is left in your iteration (based on your previous iterations velocity). Inside the box are the stories that the team has committed to for the iteration, each with its estimated size.

In addition, bugs are marked with a red bar and a small icon. This seems like a very elegant way of planning

Program Level Release Planning

Have a large product with several teams? This new feature makes it easier to track a number of projects within a single program. It makes it possible to see how releases will line up.

Their site includes a Quick Tour and an option to try for 30 days. Target Process is available as either an hosted service or an application installed in your webserver.

Many Agile coaches recommend that co-located teams start off using index cards and a task board because holding the daily scrum in front of the task board will help the team interact more. Electronic tools are normally recommended only when the team is distributed around a number of locations.

In release 2.5 an Individual Velocity Report was introduced. Some caution is required when using this feature. In the past some companies have used similar measures to track and reward individuals to the detriment of the team's performance. Agile methods are predicated on the belief that the value created by the team is greater than the sum of the individuals. A focus on the performance and reward of individuals can motivate team members to look out for themselves and not the team. This might manifest itself with some team members refusing to coach or avoiding parts of the project that might not make them look good.

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   We've removed Individual Velocity Report in fact :)

   Jan 21, 2008 9:15 AM by Michael Dubakov

   http://www.targetprocess.com/blog/2007/12/should-you-measure-individual-velocity.html

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   Re: We've removed Individual Velocity Report in fact :)

   Jan 21, 2008 11:14 AM by Deborah Hartmann

   I'm happy to hear that, Michael :-) I created one once, too. But outside the context of a very trusting and trusted team, it's a bad idea. Now, I remove it before I share that spreadsheet with others. Keep up the good work! deb

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   Re: We've removed Individual Velocity Report in fact :)

   Jan 21, 2008 12:34 PM by Mark Levison

   Good to hear. My comments were based on the the 2.5 press release so it might need updating. Cheers Mark

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   Open Source Agile planning that is Open

   Jan 22, 2008 9:45 PM by Tim Ferguson

   This looks like a nice product with some well thought out features. One of the issues we have as an Open Source project is that we would like to be completely open with our Agile process as well. What we need is a web based product that allows anyone to see our information but not necessarily change it. We would only want the contributors in the iteration to change things. We also would have no idea how many people would want to just view our planning. Has anyone else come across these needs, does this product fulfill that need? -Tim Ferguson, xaware.org

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   Re: Open Source Agile planning that is Open

   Jan 23, 2008 6:57 AM by Michael Dubakov

   >>We would only want the contributors in the iteration to change things. We also would have no idea how many people would want to just view our planning. Has anyone else come across these needs, does this product fulfill that need? That is possible at least as a workaround. You may create role named Observer for example and disable all Add/Edit/Delete permissions to this user role. Then you may create a user with login and password observer/observer and put this information somewhere in public place. Then all people will be able to login as observer and view all information, but will not be able to change it.

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   Re: Open Source Agile planning that is Open

   Jan 23, 2008 11:23 PM by Deborah Hartmann

   Definitely, this is an important role to provide for. Tools that limit "view only" usersd (or charge for them) are missing a major point of Agile, imo.

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