An Interesting Tool/Technology I encountered in Preparation for Andela Bootcamp
Andela Bootcamp is the final stage in the processes involved in getting accepted into Andela Fellowship. It’s a two-weeks intensive training and scrutinization of the prospective Andelans. Amongst the activities that happen during this period is building a full-stack application that solves or tends to solve a real-world problem. The training is not only about writing code, as in Andela just like every other world-class company pays special attention to soft skills. The Bootcampers are groomed in soft skill development, stakeholder management, project management, leadership and collaboration cultures.
To achieve the aforementioned skills, there are tools that make each of them easier in which the Bootcampers are exposed to. One of those tools that have left me in awe is Pivotal Tracker. In the next few paragraphs, I am going to tell the story of my encounter with Pivotal Tracker.
What is Pivotal Tracker?
Pivotal Tracker is a straightforward project-planning tool that helps software development teams form realistic expectations about when work might be completed based on the team’s ongoing performance. Tracker visualizes your projects in the form of stories (virtual cards) moving through your workflow, encouraging you to break down projects into manageable chunks and have important conversations about deliverables and scope ……pivotaltracker.com
The success of every business largely depends on adequate planning and management. One of the major roles of Pivotal Tracker is that it provides a platform for proper planning and management of a project. It makes it possible for progress along the line of project execution to measured.
In Pivotal Tracker, the project requirement is broken down into user stories. The user story written by the project manager called the REQUESTER contains every detail the implementer called the OWNER needs to get the task delivered with little or no attention of the project manager in a case where there’s a dedicated project manager different from the implementer.
When the story Owner completes a given story, he or she delivers it while the Owner Accepts it if it meets the acceptance criteria, otherwise, it is Rejected.
Stories are also weighted as 0, 1, 2, 3 points depending on the difficulty level of the task. Also, stories are categorized into Feature, Bugs, Chore and Release depending on it’s value to the project.
At first, it wasn’t easy for me to write standard stories on Pivotal Tracker as it was one of the requirements in carrying out the Bootcamp project but as time went on I began to appreciate the beauty of it. A well-written story is about 50 percent solved as it makes every requirement for acceptance of the task crystal clear to the implementer.
Another stunning feature of Pivotal Tracker that I discovered during the course of the Bootcamp is it’s Integration to Github. It provides a mechanism for linking the project Pivotal Tracker board to the project repository on Github. I was amazed! With this integration, there’s a two-way binding between a story and the code that implements in on the project repository making it possible for one to navigate between the story on Pivotal Tracker and it’s implementation.
Getting started with Pivotal Tracker
To get started with Pivotal Tracker, follow the steps below:
- Create a free account on Pivotal Tracker website
- Navigate to the dashboard and click on the Create Project.
- Proceed to create stories.
How to Integrate the project to the Github repository
- On the project board, click on the double downward arrows.
- Click on More
- On the new page that opened, click on integrations
- Click on Add integration and select Github
- On the form that opened, towards the bottom is GitHub Organizations and Repositories, select the project repository and click save integration.
On the branch implementing the given story, copy the story ID and append to the branch name. For example, branch-name-163346849, where the appended number is the story ID. With this, Github will be able to link the commits to the branch to the story.
That is it. For more information about Pivotal Tracker visit here.
Thanks for reading.
