 |
Ranked # in Agile Project Management Software |
|
BEST FOR:
RECOMMENDED FOR:
|
|
 Description:Trajectory is a simple but powerful set of tools for managing software projects. It compiles all the stories, bugs, and to-do's for different ideas and keeps track of progress towards meeting a specific goal. Trajectory also supports an unlimited number of users and allows companies to work on multiple projects at the same time. In addition, the pricing plans are quite reasonable, making the software a good choice for small businesses. |
|
AppTrajectory Review: Best Ticketing System I've Used |
|
|
March 30, 2012
|
|
Submitted By: Robby Grossman Company Size: $0 - $1 Million in revenues |
|
| I'm a huge fan of AppTrajectory for three major reasons. First, the interface is very clean and only shows you what you should be working on; this forces you to focus on what's important to your project. This may seem trivial or obvious, but in my experience that is very much not the case. I come from a background of bug tracking systems like JIRA and ticketing systems like Pivotal Tracker, all of which made me feel inundated with low priority bugs, "icebox" stories, etc. Trajectory is opinionated software that says you should get that stuff out of the way, and I've found that to be a much better approach towards product development. Second, Trajectory implements a great idea-story paradigm (idea hasmany stories), which I find very useful for breaking down bigger features into smaller chunks. The problem I had with other trackers is that some user stories can require a lot of time and effort, so much so that they are difficult to track or estimate individually. Ideas (which I would rename to "features" if I could) allow us to break down those bigger features into smaller stories, without losing the context of "why are we building this story?" that would not otherwise be present were it not linked to an idea. Our workflow is such that every high level user story is an idea, and every idea includes all of the stories/tasks/bugfixes necessary to complete the idea. Here's a real example from our tracker: Idea: "Build internal metrics dashboard" Story (2 pts): Pull metrics data via hadoop Story (1 pt): Automate pulling of metrics via cron/cavalcade Story (2 pt): Build dashboard frontend Story (Milestone): Internal metrics dashboard complete The granular nature of these stories allows us to track specific pieces of development so that if we get held up or blocked on something, it's immediately apparent to the project manager which piece is holding things up. Third, the search and filtering, because it is done with client-side javascript, is lightning fast. I can type somebody's name and immediately the view is filtered to their assigned stories. I can type the name of the idea and immediately I see the stories filed under it. Very snappy. Things to be aware of: 1) There is no support for custom tags on stories. The only ones provided are "Design" and "Development." I'd prefer to set my own, e.g. "Design", "Infrastructure" and "Big Data," since those are the categories and delineations of work we do at my company. 2) Trajectory is a story tracker, not a high level product management tool. I'm glad that Thoughtbot axed the idea of an "icebox", which in my opinion distracts and crowds the interface, but a consequence of that to note is that you need to do your high level planning elsewhere. We use a Google spreadsheet for ideas that team members have that are not high priority enough to schedule. We then have a weekly planning meeting where people can propose that their spreadsheet entries get promoted to Trajectory ideas/stories. Lastly, Thoughtbot is great about responding to questions/ideas/problems on their official support forum. They respond quickly, almost always the same day and often within minutes. |
|
Trajectory vs. Pivotal Tracker vs. RallyDev |
|
|
March 22, 2012
|
|
Submitted By: Marsh Sutherland Company Size: |
|
| I've founded and ran 2 web startups and used 3 different development management tools: Trajectory, PivotalTracker, and RallyDev. RallyDev has almost too many features. The UI is a bit confusing, matrixy, and not visually pleasing. PivotalTracker looks nice, but moving things in and out of the icebox was such a pain I finally said the heck with it. I felt like I was manipulating dependencies in MS Project 2000. Trajectory is easy to set up and intuitive. Thoughtbot, the developer of Trajectory, did a great job with it. I just wish I could upload a JPEG of the screenshot of a bug when creating a new bug. First you create the bug report, save it, and then upload the photo. |
|
