• Tools can enhance Scrum efficiency.
• Having the means to communicate and work remotely makes for a flexible team.
• Don’t look for purpose-built, specific tools; instead, look for tools that enhance your team’s workflow.

What are the tools every Scrum team should use? Scrum is a popular way of conducting any Agile project, but you can maximize your results with some handy applications of modern technology. Now, these don’t change how you work, but they will make things much easier on the whole.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at some of my absolute favorite tools for doing any sort of Scrum work. Most of these are free, but I’ll note where said tools have a paid or subscription option so you can make the most of them for teams of all sizes.

Why Use Tools for Scrum?

Scrum isn’t a wholly self-contained discipline by any means. As such, it only stands to reason that you would want to extend outward and make life easier and more efficient on the whole. Given the history of Scrum as a discipline intended to streamline Agile software development, think of it like you’re a programmer. You wouldn’t want to just code in a program like Notepad. Sure, you can do so, but something better suited for the job, like an IDE, is going to be a far better use of your time.

The same applies to many aspects of Scrum. At the end of the day, as a team lead, you’re looking to make the most of your team’s time. That means pushing out quality deliverables in an attainable timeframe. Spending time trying to get everyone on the same page only serves to detract from time that could be better allocated toward things like testing or prototyping.

Embracing Technology in the Modern Workplace

Modern technology has made the work we do a touch easier overall. We’re able to readily communicate, despite differing time zones, share with other team members, and construct data-rich retrospectives on the work we’ve done in the past. You could certainly do the same sort of work with the likes of PowerPoint, Excel, and other office mainstays, but you’re doing a great disservice to your time.

As such, embracing the likes of modern technology is a fantastic way of optimizing time. You’ll have everything you need to get the work done, but the avenues of communication, collaboration, and analysis are far easier to synchronize, even if you’re working in a remote team. Further, this allows teams to communicate and work together even in the event of a team member being out of the office for an extended duration.

The Best Tools Every Scrum Team Should Use

Jira

Simply put, if you aren’t using some sort of job management software at this point, you need to. Jira is essentially just a digital Scrum board. With minimal training, roughly a weekend from the time I got certified in it, you’ve got the means to keep track of jobs, tasks, and whatever issues might have been raised in a given workflow.

Other software does exist in the same overall niche, like Trello or Asana. However, Jira is an industry standard for much of the working world for good reason. You’ve got a robust support network of other users in the event of an issue coming up. This also extends to documentation, which is heavily supported by third-party vendors and users alike.

There are certainly other options you can leverage, but Jira gets our vote just due to its ease of use, flexibility, and not needing to seek Agile templates to get the software working right away. Jira is great as a free software platform, but the subscriptions on offer allow for better delegation and extensive support from the Atlassian team, among other perks.

Slack

You’ll need a means to communicate at some point during a project. I’m a daily user of Slack, and it’s been a lifesaver when it comes to getting messages to the higher-ups in a timely fashion. Slack functions much like the chatrooms of yesteryear, with user-created channels for different workflows if desired.

The free version is fine and dandy, but the paid versions you get offer up AI functionality, unlimited message history, and better overall integration with other apps and services. Further, you get some solid voice functionality built into the app as well.

Slack is highly flexible because of where you can access it. I’ve got it installed on my phone to fire off messages when questions arise, but just make sure you’re switching your notifications off on the weekend to avoid disrupting personal time.

Google Workspace

Collaborative tools are a godsend for any team. You’ll be coordinating meetings, writing reports, analyzing data, and so forth in any given project. However, you might have access to your office workstation all the time. I’m generally not a huge proponent of shifting things entirely to the cloud, but Google Workspace is an exception.

With a software suite on par with Microsoft Office, you’ve got everything you need in terms of word processing, statistical analysis, and visual presentations. They aren’t nearly as robust as a dedicated piece of software like the Office 365 suite. However, collaborative work is a cinch with Google Workspace.

You can readily get team members involved in a document just by hitting the share button and allocating permissions as desired. There are certainly other tools on the market, but few strike the balance of feature-rich and ease of use like the offering from Google. There is a free offering, but it lacks the storage and security controls of the business subscriptions on offer.

GitHub

Version control is imperative for any Scrum team doing software development. This is a non-negotiable aspect of any sort of software work in the modern era. If you’re looking to do version control, you’re going to learn Git; that’s just a simple fact of the matter. Few products on the market retain the same sort of ease of use, extensive documentation, and wide user support as GitHub.

GitHub comes in two separate variations, a paid and a free option. The free option allows you to maintain and update as many projects as you’d like. There are team and enterprise subscriptions, which charge per user. These offer up some enticing features like storage, protected branches, and a lot more.

GitHub is an industry standard for a reason, and you’ll likely sleep better knowing that your projects are in a protected repo if on-site storage goes haywire overnight.

Miro

Digital whiteboards are useful for a variety of different deployments. In the event that you’re wanting something flexible to conduct retrospectives with, you might want to take a closer look at Miro. While Jira can handle whiteboarding duties, Miro is purpose-built for it, making for a far better fit.

The free tier on offer only allows for a single workspace and 3 boards. This can be ideal for smaller organizations or teams looking for the functionality on offer. However, you unlock its feature set with the subscription options. From here, you’ve got unlimited workspaces and boards, user export in formats like PDF, and the option to integrate it more tightly with apps like Slack to share your work on the go.

Higher tiers of the subscription service are immediately useful for their extensive support, robust AI functionality, and overall data security.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Looking for something else to read before you start scrolling the morning news? You might want to look at how you can utilize cross-functional teams to break down silos in Lean Six Sigma. Cross-functional teams are a fantastic way to bring in new perspectives and get meaningful contributions to your LSS projects.

Additionally, you might want to take a closer look at the differences between BPR and Six Sigma. Both of these approaches are aimed at bettering processes, but how they accomplish this goal is quite different in practice. You’ll probably find that they work best when deployed alongside one another.

Conclusion

The best tools for Scrum are the ones that enable your team to get the work done without a fuss. Hopefully, you come away from today’s piece with at least something to add to the stable. Modern technology has made doing any sort of work a cinch, you might as well take advantage where you can.

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