ScrumWorks is Free
I spent some time evaluating tools like Rally, ScrumWorks, and XPlanner about 6 months ago. After investing some time with XPlanner and some configuration hell, I dropped it after a few weeks on a Sprint because the workflow was more of a headache then just using corkboards, index cards, and Excel.
In another little bonus from the Certified ScrumMaster course I bumped into Victor Szalvay, one of the founders of Danube Technologies the creators of ScrumWorks. He quickly informed me that they had dropped the licensing on ScrumWorks and now offered it for free. Definately back on my list to check it out, especially now that I’ve got a better idea of what we need in a tracking tool.
Ed Gibbs @ January 7, 2006
Blog in general is very related to my situation, one which you mused would eventually occur… Fed. agency, mainframe-centric, moving to modernize from iterative waterfall COBOL to mid-tier, Agile processses using Java, WebSphere, DataStage, utilizing scrum/ sprint/ iterations. Alien to us - FRB staff brought on as project manager/architects with Geniant developers in paired programming environment for knowledge transfer to our staff. In considering training for majority of programmers not in initial intense development phase, I was trying to explore evaluations/comparisons of Rally, ScrumWorks, and XPlanner but, until I hit your blog, found absolutely nothing. I would be extremely interested in what you find in your further tests.
Right now we’ve fallen back to just using task boards, as the teams like the visual nature of seeing where everyone’s at.