Scrum Tools

Scrum is an agile development framework that allows you to effortlessly deal with complex adaptive issues inside a project. 

It ensures that handling such tasks doesn’t happen at the expense of productivity and service or product delivery. With Scrum, a team is guaranteed to make strides in improving its output continuously. No kidding.

As a working structure, Scrum helps organizations generate value through the use of adaptive solutions. This means that complex problems are addressed and solved promptly. The most important attributes of Scrum include its accountabilities, artifacts, rules, and events that are injected into a project every time a team decides to use one of the tools.

Every Scrum needs a master who assumes the role of the team leader for the duration of the project. They are required to foster an environment that does the following:

• Manages and keeps track of a backlog
• Has a team ready to turn a selection into an increment
• Has subordinates that can inspect and adjust an order in preparation for a Sprint

Like other agile development tools, Scrum aids in boosting productivity and ensuring that the end customer continuously enjoys a superior product. In addition, there are other secondary benefits associated with the Scrum framework.

Our Top Picks For Scrum Tools

As one of the most popular agile project management frameworks, Scrum features numerous tools designed to extend the productivity benefits of the platform. 

These technologies adhere to the principles of incremental and interactive product development. They also entail continuous, systematic collaboration between the team members.  

Some of the top-rated Scrum tools include:

• Jira
• NTask
• QuickScrum
• ScrumDo
• VivifyScrum
• Target Process
• Scrumwise
• Eylean
• Zoho Sprints
• Monday
• Visual Paradigm
• ClickUp
• LeanKit
• Yodiz
• Axosoft
• ActiveCollab
• Pivotal Tracker
• Zepel
• Trello
• Sprint.ly
• VersionOne
• Asana
• Wrike
• Favro
• Assembla

Each of these tools offers a slightly different product development experience under the umbrella of the Scrum framework.

Reviews Of The Best Scrum Tools From Our Research

Jira

Source: Atlassian

Jira is a flagship Scrum tool thanks to the plethora of seamless features it packs. As a result, Jira is one of the most trusted Scrum software tools for agile product development. 

The service includes customizable Scrum boards, a progress report generator, bugs finder, issues tracker, and backlog management features. It also comes with custom filters, stories mapping, customizable dashboard support, real-time reporting, and sprints management.

NTask

Source: NTask

NTask is a project management software that makes Scrum implementation easy and fast.

The service comes with multiple layers of features that help teams and project managers across various industries to organize product improvement and rollout. 

In addition, the Scrum software presents businesses with a portfolio management feature, visualization platforms, issue trackers, meeting planning templates, and risk mitigation tools.

QuickScrum

Source: QuickScrum

QuickScrum is a web-based service that lets Scrum managers and their teams access the features offered by the agile framework. 

This is one of the top agile Scrum tools for new and established businesses. It comes with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for easy Scrum implementation. 

Other features offered by the platform include workflow visualization, easy file attachment, activity tracking, working statuses, efforts trackers, and third-party application integration.

ScrumDo

Source: Scrumdo

ScrumDo implements a variety of agile frameworks, including Kanban, Scrumban, and Scrum. Its functionality follows the process of creating user stories and sprint mapping. 

Despite being highly customizable, ScrumDo comes with a project dashboard and a statistics report generator, diagram creation, notification alters, and third-party integration. 

This Scrum tool has proven to be resilient in a variety of challenging development environments.

VivifyScrum

Source: VivifyScrum

VivifyScrum has a clean interface that comes with no clutter ensuring that project managers and teams aren’t distracted or required to spend time setting things up. 

Its organization and workflow management features are well-thought-out and implemented. 

The service has chart and metrics generation features, calendars, a sprint backlog, time trackers, and invoice creation templates. It also allows the team to analyze their product backlog with the option to view the board history.

Target Process

Source: Target Process

Target Process offers a versatile set of tools that any organization can adopt regardless of its size. 

A key selling point of the solution is that it provides a high level of visualization, which project managers need for transparency.

TargetProcess has a centralized dashboard that allows teams to use a drag-and-drop interface, share boards, and track projects. Additionally, it provides Sprint management and burndown features that streamline product improvement.

Scrumwise

Source: Scrumwise

Scrumwise is a task board tool that supports multiple agile frameworks allowing your team to provide services bound to work with most end businesses. 

The user interface is simple and intuitive enough so that development teams don’t have to spend too much time configuring the setup. 

In addition, the tool has numerous features for task and subtask management, role assignment, backlog analysis, task filters, Sprint management, board customization, task commenting, GitHub integration, activity history, and product release management.

Eylean

Source: Eylean

Eylean is also a task boards management tool that lets users develop and configure projects based on Agile principles. 

It’ll allow your product development team to share dashboards, add comments to tasks, add user stories, and create charts. It also supports mass task assigning, time tracking, roadmap views, and Microsoft Office integration. 

These features make it easy to get started with product development and improvement with Eylean quickly.

Monday.com

Source: Monday.com

Monday.com is a popular product development platform among small and large-sized companies based on the Scrum framework. 

It helps bind employees to their work processes so that deadlines, timelines, and progress tracking are efficient. This ensures that they are motivated, authorized, and pooled, which is necessary for their career objectives. 

The tool provides a template for tracking various aspects of product development. It also simplifies communication by maximizing interaction between all the members of the team.

Zoho Sprints

Source: Sprints

Zoho designed the service as an agile tool to ensure that product improvement and delivery can be undertaken to the highest quality. Zoho Sprints allow the development team to handle all tasks from a central location. 

These activities include meetings, appointments, creating user stories, personalizing Scrum boards, and introducing estimation points. 

Unlike other Scrum management tools, Sprints comes with support for various extensions meant to improve productivity. In addition, to ensure that team members are not tied to a computer, Zoho provides an Android and an iOS app for use on the go.  

Visual Paradigm

Source: Visual Paradigm

Visual Paradigm is a cross-platform project management tool that utilizes the Scrum framework. IT companies use the service for fast software development. It allows a team to build apps faster, more efficiently, and affordably. 

This is one of the best Scrum software whose features check most boxes on agile development. 

Other features that stand out on the platform include UML 2.x, UeXceler, Entity Relationships Diagrams, process modeling, relational database, Teamwork Server, and Doc Composer.

ClickUp

Source: ClickUp

When ClickUp was first created, it was meant for internal usage. Today, it is used for universal agile development as it increases a team’s productivity. 

Project managers prefer this Scrum framework implementation over the competition since it helps free their time by automating different responsibilities. 

ClickUp excels in project organization, collaboration, and reporting. When used to stream workflows, it comes with tagging features that assist every team member in keeping up with their duties.

Planview LeanKit

LeanKit is a project management tool that leans toward high-level visualization and product delivery. 

Its features are designed to ease the work performed by every team member by getting rid of warts and maximizing the success rate of the company.

The tool is great for any project manager that doesn’t want to deal with bloated products. This is because it removes most waste from a product development activity. 

Additionally, it’s highly scalable and allows the Scrum manager to increase the number of teams, locations, and projects that can be handled simultaneously.

Yodiz

Source: Yodiz

Yodiz is one of the most popular Scrum tools since it offers a free plan for companies whose teams don’t exceed three users, making it perfect for startups. 

You need to keep in mind that it’s possible to complete an entire project without spending much if you opt for the best free Scrum tools. 

Nonetheless, larger-sized organizations are still presented with an affordable agile framework. Some of the top features you’ll access on Yodiz include user stories, epic management, backlog analysis, and release board tracking. 

The tracking board featured in Yodiz is one of the most sophisticated features out there.

Axosoft

Source: Axosoft

Axosoft is a specialized product development tool for task-heavy software work. 

The service is unmatched in terms of functionality and allows team members to collaborate continuously throughout a project. Additionally, it also lets the end-user submit feedback during product development.

As a result, the tool makes it possible for real-world users to access product prototypes weeks or months before project completion. This ensures that the target users have thoroughly tested the end product. 

In addition to this, it comes with all the standard features you’ve come to expect in Scrum tools: Kanban boards, custom filters, sprint management, and third-party software integration.  

ActiveCollab

Source: ActiveCollab

ActiveCollab allows project managers to oversee multiple tasks simultaneously. It also comes with the option of setting up client management, email links, and recurring tasks. 

Other neat features offered by ActiveCollab include workload management, online payments, time estimate, invoicing, and third-party integration. 

In addition, the tool is one of the few Scrum applications that readily accommodates QuickBooks and Xero software making it perfect for firms working in finance or accounting.

Pivotal Tracker

Source: Pivotal Tracker

Pivotal Tracker is a simple development tool whose design is based on simplicity. It is mostly geared toward small project teams that don’t want to invest in complicated agile frameworks. 

It has one of the simplest workflow guides on the list with only two steps: icebox and iteration. 

This is undoubtedly one of the best Scrum tools for managers that don’t need a complicated solution for the projects. 

The tool allows project teams to track product development throughout every stage to ensure that actual improvements are integrated into all tasks. 

Despite this simplistic approach, Pivotal Tracker implements all the Scrum principles and allows easy Slack and GitHub integration.

Zepel

Source: Zepel

Zepel is a simple project management tool based on the Scrum agile framework for product development. It lets you collect customer requests using multiple tools, convert them into priorities, and track the development of the product every step of the way. 

The platform also shows you a snapshot of your team’s work at every stage. 

In addition, you are presented with a simple drag-and-drop interface that lets you prioritize the features that you would like to include in every product iteration.

The ability to visually track the progress of every project ensures that the entire team is working on a common goal. Other interesting features presented by Zepel include tasks, subtasks, user stories, debugging, estimation points, comment insertion, and user assignments.

Trello

Source: Trello

The main selling point of Trello is the platform’s simplicity in project management. It lets you create any number of product boards while allowing you to plan and track various attributes. Some of them include roadmaps, sprints, and task lists. 

This is one of the best free Scrum tools, which is a good fit for startups and organizations that aren’t ready to invest in an expensive agile development solution.

Creating a product card on Trello is as simple as selecting the right template, categorizing it, adding comments, setting the due dates, and highlighting the owners. 

Other important Scrum features offered on Trello include power-ups, backlog management, and compatibility with the dozens of third-party software which your project team may already be using.

Sprint.ly

Source: Sprint.ly

Sprint.ly is a well-renowned software tool used for creating, running, and managing sprints for product development, improvement, and delivery. 

The platform is popular with startups and established agencies looking for a tool that lets the Scrum manager easily view everything that the team is working on at once. 

Moreover, Sprintly can easily integrate with GitHub, which is an added advantage that allows the team to work from various platforms and easily synchronize their progress with the platform. 

Sprint.ly has an advanced matrix that comes with a type-ahead UI. Searching on the platform is highly intuitive due to its point-and-click search filters. Other important features include backlog management, Scrum report generation, and comments integration.

VersionOne

Source: VersionOne 

VersionOne is a flexible, agile project management tool that supports several frameworks, including Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe.

It helps businesses scale quickly and efficiently regardless of whether they are developing a new product or improving an existing one. 

Where the platform excels is its ability to help a Scrum manager plan their organization’s portfolio using program-level initiatives. In addition, it enables tracking and project visibility which is critical for making data-driven decisions in real-time. 

VersionOne also comes with Sprint planning features, report generation, analytics, user stories, defects analysis, and tracking.

Asana

Source: Asana

Asana is one of the newest Scrum tools for agile project management, focusing on running, organizing, and managing existing projects.

The platform includes critical features such as timelines, dependencies, custom fields, and project boards.

It also allows Scrum managers to convert common concepts into Asana. The commonest examples of this include user stories, product features, and portfolios. In addition, the tool is meant to facilitate faster communication, announcements, and product comments.

Wrike

Source: Wrike

Wrike is an agile project management program that focuses on delivering fast results. With a customizable workspace, team communication, workload balancing, dashboards, and automatic status reporting tools, Wrike promises unmatched performance in managing sprints. 

It integrates seamlessly with most third-party software and comes with dozens of ready-to-use templates.

Favro

Source: Favro

Favro is a cloud platform that gives Scrum managers the tools they need for collaborating, planning, writing, and organizational work. Asana’s implementation provides a digital office space needed to empower teams to work autonomously from remote locations. 

In addition, the platform promises transparency and high-level visibility since the project manager is provided with the tools needed for overseeing product development, improvement, or delivery. 

Favro goes a step further and allows organizations to forecast issues before they get out of hand, which is critical in preventing bottlenecks and allowing leaders to make data-driven decisions.

Assembla 

Source: Assembla

Assembla is a cloud-based project management platform that supports multiple agile frameworks, including Scrum and Scale Scrum. Its key differentiating factor is the deep focus on visualization. 

It comes with task boards and card walls that show real-time updates for product development. It also allows the project team to manage tickets, create milestones, and integrate popular repositories with the base code, including GitHub. 

Additionally, your project team is not tied to a computer browser since Assembla has an iOS app.

Buyer’s Guide For Scrum Tools

Why is Scrum Important Today?

Scrum derives its utility from modern business development concerns associated with the complexity of projects. Often, it is easy for a team to lose track of one of the key customer requirements for software, product, or service improvement. 

On the other hand, organizations that focus on such increments run the risk of failing to deliver regular output. In most cases, their efforts, time, and resources are held up in product improvement.

The Scrum framework introduces a working balance between regular business operations and product improvement. It helps organizations manage the tradeoff without sacrificing one aspect over the other.

The framework presents benefits for the following stakeholders:

• Customers
• Vendors
• Development teams
• Product managers
• Project managers
• C-Level executives

Scrum helps customers by ensuring that product vendors are continuously adding features that improve the end experience. This may be contrasted with the traditional approach, where improvements are delayed for years in preparation for an overhaul. 

Overall, the customer gets to enjoy quicker fixes and timely responses to complaints as they don’t need to wait for a big upgrade sometime in the future. Faster development requests and implementation are critical since it keeps customer satisfaction high.

The framework benefits the product vendors by allowing them to focus on creating high-quality features. This means that they don’t have to keep repairing and patching up older legacy systems that are best discarded. 

Consequently, most of the development effort is directed at features that the customer needs.

Scrum also shortens the overall development time since the overheads and efficiency that the framework encourages don’t require months or years of planning. Instead, changes are implemented as soon as the need to consider them arises.

This means that the backlog is continuously being addressed in the present. It also implies that the product is continuously improving without requiring the vendors to consider expensive capital injection for the customer.

By addressing problems as soon as they arise, the development team minimizes the time spent solving unnecessary glitches. 

For instance, it’s unnecessary to spend time and resources patching up an older piece of software if the same benefits can be had by improving the overall product. However, the customer may not realize this since they don’t have access to a company’s development information.

Scrum helps project managers since they are responsible for ensuring that every major task is accomplished within the correct time frame, budget, and quality specifications. Scrum managers have to invest lots of time and effort balancing the three attributes under the traditional waterfall approach. 

However, Scrum helps them plan and track the execution and implementation of any project in a more streamlined fashion.

Remember, the stakes of managing a traditional project are higher since such undertakings are considered after a long time. Moreover, they are capital-intensive projects that attract a high level of risk in case of unforeseen challenges. 

With Scrum, the manager doesn’t need to worry so much since continuous iterations allow them to make scope adjustments every few months. Moreover, Scrum doesn’t attract high stakes as the budgetary overlay is often modest.

C-Level executives are considered to be part of the external stakeholders’ group. One of their key demands during product development is transparency since they’re answerable to the investors. Therefore, they need as much information as possible whenever they have to face the shareholders.

With Scrum, they get to observe and scrutinize intricate aspects of product development in a way that wouldn’t be possible under the traditional method. This is because the scope of any Increment is often small enough to review and internalize.

With the benefits of this agile framework out of the way, it’s necessary to analyze some of the leading Scrum tools.

Final Thoughts

Agile project management and product development principles have become a necessity in modern businesses looking for transparency, flexibility, and reliable delivery. 

Tools such as Jira, ScrumDo, VivifyScrum, and others discussed above are critical in implementing the Scrum agile approach to project management.

One important feature offered by every Scrum implementation is support for self-organization. The framework allows teams to solve problems based on the feedback received from various quarters. 

It doesn’t advocate a standard step-by-step methodology but provides the principles that should be followed in ensuring that products are developed and improved continuously.

The tools we discussed above seek to provide a suitable launchpad for businesses looking for the best agile project implementation platforms. 

Regardless of what you choose, you’re assured of better productivity and boosted efficiency across your organization.