agile management tools
Even the most agile project likely uses some kind of tools - index cards, whiteboards, etc. I recently checked out a few agile project management tools to help me with a small, but globally distributed, project. (Without continuously-on high-powered video support across the oceans, whiteboards and index cards are just too hard for everyone on the team to see ;)) After a quick check of ThoughtWorks’ Mingle, Rally Development's VersionOne, TargetProcess, and Pivotal Labs' Tracker, I decided to try out Tracker for my team. My main reasons:
it's free for our team size (under 5 people),
it's hosted (zero installation effort, and provides easy access from anywhere for globally distributed teammates),
it's reputed to be fairly simple and straightforward to use.
Although I'm all in favor of applying appropriate rigor (e.g. using a method like AHEAD) to software technology evaluations for which the business consequences warrant it, in this case, 'doing the simplest thing that could possibly work' didn't appear to require anything sophisticated. I'll post later on how well it works for us. I'd love to hear from anyone who has used them, or other tools, for similar geographically-distributed team situations.