Finding the right Scrum toolkit
At WeGroup, we are scrum-enthusiasts and eager to start exploring the possibilities of the framework. Scrum is an agile process that allows us to focus on delivering the business value in the shortest time. It rapidly and repeatedly inspects actual working software. It emphasizes accountability, teamwork, and iterative progress toward a well-defined goal. However, in order to do so, we need to find the right toolkit that suits our needs.
The Scrum Framework usually deals with the fact that the requirements are likely to change or most of the time not known at the start of the project.
For us to be able to work easily with scrum, the chosen toolkit needs to meet some requirements:
- A mobile application, so the progress of the sprints can be checked wherever you are.
- A list view of tasks is also a necessity, so that one quickly has an overview of all tasks.
- Next to the list view, there needs to be some form of metrics, so the performance can be tracked and deadlines can be predicted.
- We also want to group users in teams, so their individual burn rate and user stories can be assigned.
- Lastly, it needs to be able to integrate with some of our used tools like Bitbucket.
Jira
For our use, Jira did not meet all requirements. It had no calendar for a global overview, and there was no function to generate a task list for each user. Although very complete in configuration, it is quite hectic and not that user friendly.
Scrumwise
For us, Scrumwise feels quite complicated in comparison with other platforms. It also lacks a calendar, and it only integrates with GitHub, which we don’t use.
Axosoft
Axosoft checks almost all of our requirements, but it lacks the app and calendar functionality. It also seems cluttered and quite busy, but it’s a slight improvement on Scrumwise.
Clickup
Clickup seems to meet all of our requirements, and it feels pretty good and intuitive while using it. The front-end team seems to love the design. Clickup also is one of the cheaper ones from this list, at only 5$ per user per month.
Zenkit
Up until now, we were using Zenkit for task handling. Although it has most of the requirements we demand, it lacks metrics, burndown and gant charts. Because of this, we are not able to track the performance of the team (which is kind off the whole reason this blog post came to be). The user interface and feel of the platform is amazing though.
Aputime
Aputime seems to be lacking most of requirements, as it has no app, calendar and functionality to create teams. Also, the integrations are a bit weak, where only Slack support is provided.
Monday
Monday seems like quite a nice platform. It does not have a calendar built-in, but covers that field by providing integration with Google calendar. The biggest issue is the lack of team creation.
Wrike
Wrike checks all the boxes from our requirements list, just like Clickup, and feels good to use. However, this amazing functionality comes at a price, at 5x that of Clickup to be precise.
Asana
Asana is another platform that checks all the boxes for us. In use, it looks great, but it does not feel good in usage. The issue is also in the pricing, which comes at almost 4x the price of a Clickup license.
Taskworld
The last one we compared is Taskworld. From our requirements list, it lacks the team functionality. It is possible to assign yourself to a department, but not to link a task to a department.
In conclusion, from the ten scrum toolkits we compared, only three candidates are left: Asana, Wrike and Clickup. Since the feeling of Asana wasn’t that great, and Wrike is quite expensive, we went along with giving Clickup a try!
