Why do we need an effective project management in the first place?
The simple answer for the question is because we now live in more complex world where every single activity, be it personal or business related, needs to be considered as project. Our life would be doomed if we can not manage all of these projects!
We don't need to spend hours to get to know what GitScrum is. From its name, you can guess that it relates to git and scrum. The only issue here is that many of us may not have any idea (yet) what git and scrum are.
Here's what we can learn about Git. Please note that we don't need to know in detail about Git to learn more and use GitScrum as our project management tool.
And here's what we can learn about Scrum in under 5 minutes:
So, what is project management?
Project management is the planning, organizing and managing the effort to accomplish a successful project. A project is a one-time activity that produces a specific output and or outcome, for example, a building or a major new computer system.
But, please remember that project, as it's defined as one-time activity, can include simple activities that you may manage them in a simple to-do list.
Here's how Denis Sasal explains project management in a short video:
Now, why GitScrum?
This article is not suggesting that GitScrum is the only tool for project management. Apart from traditional tools like Microsoft Project and other desktop tools, there are many tools available that can even be used without the need to install anything on our computer. These SAAS (Software As A Service) applications range from simple to-do list tools to get things done to kanban or collaboration based applications like Trello, Basecamp and Asana.
Here are 10 reasons why I believe GitScrum the best choice for an effective project management, regardless whether it's related to software development on not.
1. Gamification
Why gamification is important?
Since we're kids, we love to create and play games. The main reason of having and playing games is to have fun and get motivated by whatever we're doing. Gamification is the process of creating ordinary activity into something fun and rewarding.
Here's how John Sanei explains gamification of everything:
The gamification aspect of GitScrum provides the ability of motivating and rewarding team members in completing each of their assigned tasks. This gamification thing is indeed important when you see the necessity to get everyone in the project accountable and even reward the super performers.
2. User Stories
Putting people first is the key component of product development using agile or scrum methodology.
User-stories put actual end users at the center of the conversation. Stories use non-technical language to provide context for the development team and their efforts. After reading a user story, the team knows why they are building what they’re building and what value it creates.
GitScrum put user stories as a pre-requisite to tasks development. Each task is created to match requirement set in the user stories.
Typically, use stories use format like this:
As a [persona] I want to [do something/get something] so then I can [get something/accomplish something]
3. Sprint
Sprint is the heart of Scrum. GitScrum has the feature to set sprint so that certain goal can be achieved while the whole objective can still be maintained. Each Sprint may be considered a part of project with no more than a one-month horizon
Sprints contain and consist of the Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, the development work, the Sprint Review, and the Sprint Retrospective.
4. MoSCoW
The MoSCoW method is a prioritization technique used in management, business analysis, project management, and software development to reach a common understanding with stakeholders on the importance they place on the delivery of each requirement; it is also known as MoSCoW prioritization or MoSCoW analysis.
Prioritisation can be applied to requirements, tasks, products, use cases, user stories, acceptance criteria and tests. MoSCoW is a technique for helping to understand priorities. The letters stand for:
- Must Have
- Should Have
- Could Have
- Won’t Have this time
With GitScrum you can define these prioritization so you always know which activities should come first and which ones may come second, third or even being ignored until time tells otherwise.
5. Flexible Workflow
With GitScrum you can create workflows as long or as short as you want. Typical workflow is to have TODO - DOING - DONE.
There is no prescribed workflow to follow. Like when you create lists on your Trello's board, you can create workflow that can be viewed as kanban board.
6. Time Tracking
Sometimes when you are doing your project, the payment is based on how long the project is completed. With GitScrum, you can track time consumed down to the level of sub tasks you are working on.
When you can keep a check over the time spent and comment on each task of your project,you can manage your projects better.
7. Task Effort
GitScrum uses the fibonacci sequence as standard for task efforts.
Traditional software teams give estimates in a time format: days, weeks, months. Many agile teams, however, have transitioned to story points. Story points rate the relative effort of work in a Fibonacci-like format: 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100.
Here's the reasons:
Do we need to follow this approach for each of our project in GitScrum?
The answer is "no".
We do not need to use Fibonacci sequence approach as it will be a little bit confusing if we're not working on any software development project. We can set task effort as simple as: super easy, easy, a bit difficult, difficult and super difficult.
In GitScrum, task effort can be easily changed through settings menu.
8. Unlimited Storage
Project management, be it big or small, needs some files to be stored and exchanged. GitScrum generously gives unlimited storage even for members of free account!
9. Team Performance
There are metrics to know immediately if you are on track, and make adjustments on the fly. An effective team can help an organization achieve incredible results.
With GitScrum, you can track team performance and progress through provided scrum metrics such as work in progress, defect detected, charts and others.
10. Collaboration
With GitScrum, collaboration is simple. You can share a board planning with anyone, anywhere. Generate a public link and share. It’s that easy.
