Filling a Void in Agile Development

Agile development organizations come in a variety of shapes and sizes:

• Small teams of a few people simply getting their job done in a manner they find most efficient.
• Departments with multiple project teams planning their work in concert.
• Large organizations with thousands of employees across multiple product lines and divisions.

While all aiming for their agile ideal, the desires vary across roles in an organization. Agile development teams want to focus on the work in front of them without any obstacles. Product Owners need to be able to plan for the future and, potentially, flexibly coordinate work across multiple backlogs. Stakeholders want the comfort and knowledge that comes with visibility.

In conversations we’ve had with numerous agile development practitioners, a common concern began to surface. Organizations beginning to grow and expand their agile reach repeatedly spoke of a gap between the functionality of the team-only tools and the enterprise-wide tools. A typical scenario involved:

A) a group with some mixture of agile experience
B) who worked across multiple product backlogs
C) and had external stakeholders who need visibility

No Good Fit

Spreadsheets and physical boards didn’t provide the visibility to their expanding group of external stakeholders. Bug trackers and wikis didn’t help enforce the agile processes they were finding so beneficial, and often led to a regression back to the “old ways.” At the same time, the flexibility provided by full-scale enterprise tools was just way more than they needed. The proverbial chair, it seemed for these groups, was always either too big or too small.

What to do? Well, in those frustrations, we heard opportunity.

Enter Catalyst.

VersionOne’s new Catalyst Edition is specifically for the team that is branching out and pulling in external stakeholders, working across multiple backlogs and, perhaps, still bringing on new team members who appreciate the guidance of a process-based navigation scheme. It has been right-sized with enough functionality to manage multiple backlogs, but not so much as to become overwhelming.

If you know of a team who seems to have fallen into the void between the ‘too-little tools’ and the ‘too-much tools,’ point them in the direction of VersionOne Catalyst Edition. We’re hoping this chair will feel just right.

More information on Catalyst Edition

Catalyst Edition Product Tour

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