Hello and welcome to tools and processes for agile practices. In this lesson, we are going to touch on some of the physical tools, project management tools, and screen recording tools that you can use to facilitate agile practices in your organization.

While it's certainly true that specific tools are not necessarily needed to develop using agile methods, using agile friendly tools can certainly improve your outcomes. That said, the process that you follow is really the most important tool for agile development. All of the tools that we are about to discuss are really secondary to the process itself.

While there are many digital tools available to facilitate your agile practices, physical tools also play a role. For example, many organizations rely on simple things, like whiteboards, when collaborating. Even sticky notes and index cards can be useful for making notes and for moving tasks around. I know it sounds old-school, but physical tools can often be more convenient and more effective under certain circumstances. So, don't discount them.

Project management tools, by definition, are used to assist with project planning and execution along with monitoring. They are also helpful for managing and tracking releases. Project management tools are also used to record the outcomes of retrospectives and to work with them as well. Things like Kanban boards are often included in many different project management tools that are available.

Many tools will also offer visualizations and pretty graphics that measure team progress against the defined goals and targets that have been set. Other project management tools will even integrate with code repositories and CI/CD tools.

Azure DevOps offers flexible Kanban boards and traceability via backlogs. It also offers customizable dashboards, scrum boards, and can even integrate with code repositories. This allows you to link code changes directly to tasks and bugs.

While Azure DevOps is a pretty robust project management tool for agile practices, there are some other common tools available. These tools include things like JIRA Agile, Tremolo, SprintGround, and many, many others. Your job is to determine which project management tools work best for your agile practice.

The last type of tools that I want to talk about here are screen recording tools. Screen recording tools are often overlooked when it comes to agile practices. However, they can actually be quite helpful, especially when there are remote team members involved. More specifically, screen recording tools like Camtasia and SnagIt, can be helpful because you can use them to record bugs in action. This allows team members to actually see what is happening. Such tools can also be used to record tutorials and demonstrations as well. That being the case, don't discount screen recording tools when building an agile practice.

Lectures

• Course Introduction
• Project Metrics and KPIs
• Mentoring Team Members on Agile Practices
• In-Team and Cross-Team Collaboration
• Creating Organizational Structures for Agile Practices
• Conclusion