Nonprofit Agile Tools
After just about every training we host at Agile in Nonprofits, one of the questions that comes up is “what Agile tools do you suggest for Scrum boards?” or “which Agile tool should we use for Sprint boards?” These questions, before COVID, were easy to answer, a whiteboard or dry erase board, a few markers, and sticky notes – the super sticky kind of course! However, in a world where we have become accustomed to in person meetings and even coworking as a thing of the past, we now turn to virtual whiteboards, Zoom meetings, and an instant message program.
This then opens the question to a much broader answer – “well there are tools that are a blank start such as Mural and Miro, or there are tools that are more in depth and have a framework started that you customize like Jira, Trello, Asana, and ClickUp.” Really, it is what will work for your team, with the same goal of making the work visible, easily accessible, and collaborative.
(An important note – our team does not endorse any specific Agile tool and they are not listed in any specific order, these are simply tools our team has used, is currently using, or have tested at least a little bit. )
Miro and Mural are very similar in a sense of starting out as infinite whiteboards and using your creativity (or templates they have) and designing a board specific to you.
In fact, in Miro, you can create sticky notes on a whiteboard, snap a photo with the miro app on your phone and it will transfer the sticky notes onto your virtual whiteboard, this way your team members can then utilize those stickies also. You can then add assignees, tags, and attachments to these stickies.
With Mural, as the same with Miro, you can color code, add attachments, tag team members and create notes.
Miro has a free version with up to 3 whiteboards.
Mural has a free consulting version you can apply for.
In this video, we show you how to build a backlog using Miro.
Trello is a simple way to have a customizable kanban board and list of tasks. This tool does start giving you the opportunity to to utilize estimates and have a burndown chart. Within the tool you create “cards” which are your tasks, you can assign, add links, attach images, and have notes within the card.
Trello has a free version but to utilize items like the burn down or burn up you do have to upgrade.
ClickUp is a great tool if you enjoy a lot of detail. This tool does seem very overwhelming at first with lots of customization, details, and different views. Within this tool you can create a list view, a card view (very similar to Trello), a calendar view, and many more along with burn up and burn down charts. You can also set up automatic Sprints at the length you and your team choose with estimations. Along with Miro, Mural, and Trello you can add assignees, tags, links, and attachments, you can also use a chat function.
ClickUp has a free version that you and your team can utilize together.
In this video, we show you how to build a backlog using ClickUp.
Asana is a tool our team has not dived into in-depth at this time, however, it is in our backlog to learn further. We have been told that this tool is very similar to ClickUp in a sense of detail and collaboration.
Asana does have a free version with limitations.
Jira is a tool our team used to use as it truly breaks down from Epics. In this you can have your set Sprints with each team member assigned to their own Kanban board; to do, doing, in review, and done. This tool is ideal for your organization if you need additional reporting along with the burndown charts, yesterday’s weather, and more.
Jira is owned by the same company that owns Trello.
You can view our view as we walk through each of these tools on our YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/HbeuwOvzqAE