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How to Choose The Right Agile Project Management Tool for Your Team & Popular Tool Examples

April 24, 2024

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Emily May

Choosing the right agile project management tool for your team is a collaborative decision that requires consideration of agile methodology, organizational goals, and team preferences. 

Whether you’re searching for your team’s first project management tool or are ready to switch to a new one, with so many choices available, it can be challenging to know how to choose the right software.

Spoiler alert: there isn’t one particular tool that reigns supreme. Instead, it’s about choosing project management software that fits your team's needs.

In this article, we provide readers with four points to consider when choosing an agile project management tool and examples of popular tools currently on the market. 

What Is an Agile Project Management Tool?

An agile project management tool is an application that supports teams in implementing agile ways of working. 

Common features of agile-focused project management platforms include:

  • Iteration planning 
  • Real-time task board tracking
  • Backlog management
  • Seamless collaboration
  • Visualization of work (kanban boards)

    • Most agile teams use project management tools to store work efforts in one centralized location to promote productivity, visibility, and collaboration. Task boards empower teams to stay aligned with agile principles and deliver value more quickly to their customers. 

    How to Choose a Project Management Tool for Your Agile Team

    Many agile organizations aren’t sure how to choose agile project management software. The ICAgile team applies a set of best practices when choosing project management tools to ensure that they meet our preferences, organizational standards, and goals. 

    Start your project management tool search by exploring the objectives below and using this list as a reference to narrow your options. 

    Start With Target Outcomes in Mind

    cartoon of a person showing a target

    While two organizations may practice an agile mindset, their teams likely operate in different contexts, from product offerings to culture, goals, and number of employees. Agile teams also utilize different frameworks, such as scrum and kanban.

    In the same way, each agile team will have different use cases and target outcomes for their project management tools. 

    As a first step, leaders and their teams should brainstorm what they are looking for in a project management tool. For example, at ICAgile, we value adaptation, so we need the capability to make changes to our task board quickly and efficiently. 

    Understanding your team's unique needs, such as budget, integration capabilities, customization, and other factors, can exponentially speed up the search process. 

    Aim for Low Maintenance

    One factor that agile teams shouldn’t overlook is ease of use. Agile environments are fast-paced and ever-changing, and a project management tool should support the team for seamless adaptation. 

    If your team plans to utilize your project management software for daily scrum or sprint ceremonies such as sprint retrospectives, accessibility is crucial. 

    An agile project management tool ideally has an intuitive design and requires minimum possible effort to maintain. With less time spent on technical upkeep, agile teams can focus on tasks that require their specialized skills to deliver customer-centric products.

    Consider Team Preferences

    cartoon of a team talking about preferences

    Agile teams are human-centric, and this involves considering not only the needs of the customer but also the needs of internal stakeholders. 

    To protect the time and money invested into the process and increase positive outcomes, allow team members to weigh in on the decision. 

    For example, when tools are challenging to navigate, employees are less likely to rely on them, which can lead to a lack of structure and dissatisfaction among team members.

    In running collective experiments and collecting team feedback, organizations are empowered to choose a project management platform that meets internal needs to foster engagement and collaboration. 

    Prioritize Work Visibility for Shared Understanding

    The last core component to look for in an agile project management tool is its ability to make work visible across your team. Work visibility is essential for aligning with functional and cross-functional teams.

    Agility is rooted in adaptation, and as we work iteratively and modify our approach to tasks based on real-time feedback, project management tools keep teams on the same page throughout rapid changes. 

    Work visibility develops a shared understanding that contributes to greater:

    • Accountability
    • Transparency
    • Alignment
    • Collaborative opportunities
    • Identification of challenges
    • Autonomy

    Visibility empowers team members to take an active role in their projects and those of their coworkers while also providing a clear view of how their collective tasks work together to achieve organizational goals.

    Popular Agile Tool Options

    cartoon of someone considering agile tools

    Many agile teams consider Jira, Trello, and Asana the best tools for agile project management. Below is a brief overview of each tool’s features and links to their pricing plans.

    Jira by Atlassian

    According to the Jira website, over 100,000 agile teams use the project tracking software, and ICAgile is currently among them. 

    Each ICAgile department has its own task board visible to the rest of the organization. We regularly reference Jira in sprint meetings to stay aligned on addressing blockers, potential collaborations, and bandwidth for a current or upcoming sprint. 

    We leverage Jira for the following main features: 

    • Custom task board
    • Prioritization of projects based on timeline (sprints)
    • Backlog management
    • User stories & epics
    • Project tracking and reporting
    • Task and workflow automation


    Visit Jira’s pricing page for updated plan options.

    Trello by Atlassian

    cartoon of an agile board

    Another popular Atlassian product among agile teams is Trello, described as “a productivity powerhouse” on its website. Like Jira, the software organizes projects within team boards as cards that move across the list from left to right as they are being completed. 

    Trello can be customized to fit the needs of various use cases across industries and team sizes, including as a team project management collaboration tool or for personal project management.

    The main features of Trello include:

    • Visual task boards
    • ‘Views’ feature consists of task boards, timelines, tables, calendars, dashboards, maps, and workspaces
    • Templates for projects and workflows
    • Automation & built-in AI assistance
    • ‘Power-ups’ & integrations (Trello links to Jira)
    • Customization


    Visit Trello’s pricing page for updated plan options.

    Asana

    Advertised as “a smarter way to scale,” Asana is another popular project management tool for productive teams that want to align their workflows with organizational goals.

    The Asana website states, "85% of Fortune 100 companies choose Asana,” including Overstock, HubSpot, Figma, and Sony Music.

    The main features of Asana include:

    • Visual project management & task boards
    • Goals & reporting dashboards
    • Workflows & automation
    • Resource management
    • Admin & security
    • Asana Intelligence (AI)


    Visit Asana’s pricing page for updated plan options.

    Conclusion

    Despite the many options on the market, choosing the right project management tool for your agile team becomes more straightforward when considering target outcomes, ease of use, team preferences, and work visibility.

    Do you need to brush up on agile implementation within your team? Explore our Agile Fundamentals and Business Agility Foundations certification courses that prepare leaders to establish an agile mindset within their teams and leverage tools and frameworks to jumpstart value delivery. 

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    TAGGED AS:
    Delivery Management, Agile Project and Delivery Management, Delivery at Scale

    About the author

    Emily May | ICAgile, Marketing Specialist
    Emily May is a Marketing Specialist at ICAgile, where she helps educate learners on their agile journey through content. With an eclectic background in communications supporting small business marketing efforts, she hopes to inspire readers to initiate more empathy, productivity, and creativity in the workplace for improved internal and external outcomes.

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