Originally posted by Klaus Meucht:
Hello
Which Features doesn't Extreme Planner use, that conventional planner tools have, because agile project teams don't need this features.
Are there any features that are special for agile projects, that conventional planner tools don't have?
Klaus Meucht
Hi Klaus,
Good questions!
The main features that ExtremePlanner excludes are such items as Gantt charts, resource-leveling functions, task-level start and end-dates, and dependency tracking.
While these features have their place, we've found that most Agile teams just don't use them. And our
philosophy has been to keep things as simple as possible.
In terms of features ExtremePlanner includes (not normally found in traditional PM tools), I'd say it is quite different in that planning and tracking are user story-driven rather than task-driven.
What I mean by that is that traditional planning often focuses entirely on low-level tasks, resource assignments, etc. that don't actually map to business functionality or goals.
ExtremePlanner lets you define User Stories as increments of business value that can be prioritized, estimated, and then scheduled for releases and iterations.
Unlike traditional tools that micro-managing each task with a start and end date and artifical dependencies, you manage at the iteration level (usually a 2 to 4 week period) and track the progress of stories and tasks that will lead to delivered software.
Some features that support this:
- Burn-down progress charts by release or iteration (how fast are we going?)
- Iteration status view that shows graphical status of tasks by User Story
- User Story-driven planning (stories have associated tasks, acceptance tests, file attachments, etc.)
- Configurable estimation units (hours, days, weeks, or story points)
- Acceptance
test tracking
