Hi,

Check out http://www.agilefant.org/wiki/display/AEF/Related+work

Of the commercial ones, VersionOne seems currently to be the most popular one that companies which are now evaluating commercial solutions seem to adopt.

Of the open source ones, the best comparison I've so far seen is by Brad Swanson (check out the link from the above page), though it is now a couple of months old.

Myself, I'd go for Agilefant (but I'm biased :)

Jarno

There is a couple of good hosted solutions that, IMO, standout.

Pivotal Tracker

Atlassian Software's JIRA (and related suite)

Atlassian has an entire suite of tools that integrate with JIRA so you can use what you need. There are also version that you can host internally on you own servers.

The system here wouldn't let me post more than one link as I'm a new user; so I had to post text.

If your team is colocated I'll recommend that you start out using a whiteboard until you got the process right. Nothing beats the whiteboard as an information radiator.

If you must report to a manager then you should try to use the format that require the least amount of work from you side and still delevers the facts that the manager needs. In most cases that seems to be an excel sheet :-)

edit: I've seen a few places where the team have hacked together a script that transformed the excel sheet into a project dashboard each night. The result was that management was happy, the customer was happy and both of them left the team alone, and that made them happy (and productive)

We're currently using Bright Green Projects for an agile implementation. The interface is really intuitive and the support the guys offer is amazing.

If you're looking for a virtual taskboard for distributed Agile teams, check out SeeNowDo.com - it support multiple projects and boards. It's also free.

Starting out, yep - nothing beats whiteboards, something like Google docs, and team synergy (it's not a tool). Remember Agile is not about Scrum or XP or Kanban boards. It is about people and values. IMO, start with the basics and see what would benefit YOUR team. Once you have an Agile-aware team, add weapons to their arsenal.

You really don't want a tool. You want a solution - I assume?

Best,

Josh

Also have a look at Psoda (www.psoda.com) it includes tools for managing your requirements backlog, tasks, actions, budgets etc.

Whiteboards, flipcharts & a wiki.

I also like to use screen casting for support documentation as I've found support guys never read the dry boring word docs.

I may point you to take a look at tinyPM. I'm one of the creators of that tool so you may find this recommendation evil ;-) But we do use it on our own projects. You can also use it for FREE with a team of up to 5 people.

As for whiteboards and co-location - I also like to have whiteboards and cards / post-it's on them but only when the whole team is co-located. How many of us does not have that comfort today?

There is also this small syndrome that the further you need to go to see that board on the wall the less you care about what is sticked to it, while the tool is always there when you have those few minutes when you would like to take a look at it. So when choosing a tool I need to ask myself if I will waste those few minutes of my time with that tool and better go to that board or not.

Do the tools cut down direct communication? I don't think so. The need to communicate is within people. If they don't want to talk to each other they won't no matter how close to the whiteboard they stand. The tools (in my opinion have) a chance to make those conversations more productive as we have more information. So a good tool (same as whiteboard) will need to give you more valuable information than it requires from you (as well as you wall that needs only a little card and give you so much information in return).

I recommend checking out LiquidPlanner, it was designed for agile projects: http://www.liquidplanner.com/agile

Take a look at WRAP (WoodRanch Agile Projects) at www.agilewrap.com.

It allows to do backlog management, nested stories, taskboard, defect, iteration and release management. Very intuitive, easy to use and comes with 5 users free pack.