Mingle For Agile Software Development

Posted on March 2nd, 2008

For a long time, I’ve been looking for a decent system to manage Second Rotation’s user stories. I have to say, I’ve been very impressed with Mingle. Last week, I worked on refining the story statuses for the life cycle of a user story once it is slated for an iteration. Here’s what we came up with:

  • Awaiting Information – the engineering team is waiting on the stakeholder for information
  • Ready For Development – the developer assigned the user story has all the information needed to commence work
  • In Progress – the developer is working on the user story
  • Ready for Staging – the developer has finished work on the user story, and it’s ready to be sent to our staging environment
  • Staged – the story has been sent to our staging environment and is ready for testing
  • Ready for Deployment – the story has been validated, both from a QA and stakeholder’s perspective. This means the user story is green lighted for production
  • Complete – the story has been deployed to production

The value of defining these statuses within Mingle is the ability to define transitions. For example, I can report to stakeholders an average delay per user story because I track when a story enters and exits the Awaiting Information status. I can also track how well a developer is fulfilling requirements. If a user story is consistently Staged and then reverted to In Progress, This is all done automatically as the story owner moves it through the life cycle we’ve created.

Another huge analytic – I’ll be able to track estimation quality by comparing planning estimates to the duration of a story having the status of “In Progress”

Eventually, I want to refine these story statuses to reflect what’s done before a user story is assigned to an iteration.

One thing I wish Mingle had that causes a major gap in my regular status reports is the ability to correlate many user stories to a project. Business stakeholders do not usually respond well to a long list of stories, so being able to report status on a project by project basis would be ideal. Thoughtworks (the developers of Mingle) reports that this will be a feature in an upcoming release.

If you’re managing an Agile Software Development project, I highly recommend you check out Mingle.

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  • eagleshot
    Thanks for the great info...
  • Business stakeholders do not usually respond well to a long list of stories, so being able to report status on a project by project basis would be ideal............
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  • I have used mingle for Agile software and found very helpful in my projects. But one thing I wish Mingle had that causes a major gap in my regular status reports is the ability to correlate many user stories to a project.
  • dashingabhi
  • Some have argued that the meaning of Agile is ambiguous and has been applied inappropriately to a very wide range of approaches like Six Sigma and CMMi (though proponents of some agile methods, such as Scrum, show that the methods can exist comfortably within a CMMi environment.)
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  • jenni06
  • Musicvideos1
    the feature of The card wall is very helpful. Mingle is now my first choice. Thanks
    Music
  • Mingle is the best. I have been using this tool from very long time..
  • Thanks for sharing this..i will definitely try is mingle software
  • i agree, interesting software.
  • ill will try this as soon as possible
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  • Good recommendation. I will definately give it a try.
  • ThoughtWorks, Rally, VersionOne, or Microsoft's Team System 2008, it would be very helpful to have a large monitor or fatscreen on the wall with your cards or a dashboard (with burndown, etc) as the information radiator.
  • This tool helps get development groups off the white board, but not necessarily for Agile, more for software development process. Although I can see some important Agile practices applications being made easier through it.
  • Mingle is the best. I have been using these for so long & I am totally satisfied.
  • We use Mingle internally and it's got some great features. The card wall is an office favorite as it shows every project in progress as well as who has touched it. It also includes historical data regarding the touch.
  • Hi.. Very thanks for informing. I will look forward for mingle. It's a new knowledge for me, but I like it so much..
  • Business stakeholders do not usually respond well to a long list of stories, so being able to report status on a project by project basis would be ideal............
  • I have used mingle and its a hell of a software !
  • The software is a remarkable achievement in web technologies. Some have argued that the meaning of Agile is ambiguous and has been applied inappropriately to a very wide range of approaches like Six Sigma and CMMi (though proponents of some agile methods, such as Scrum, show that the methods can exist comfortably within a CMMi environment.)[31] Some have argued also that "Agile", "evolutionary", and "lean" (as in Lean software development) do not mean the same thing in practice, even though they are all lumped under the banner of "Agile" and are often used interchangeably by practitioners.
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  • vickyse
    t
  • awesome blog about Mingle! the features of Mingle was so good.. its nice that in their upcoming release the features that you wanted to have in Mingle will be there.
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  • Great recommendation, I should give it a try.
  • Everyone need to adapt the new rapidly growing technologies that is what Agile Software did, they have made a good technological development and they are doing a great job.

    Thanks
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  • Recently Agile software development has changed informatively as well as technically they have made very good progress according to the technology development.
  • This software increased productivity in the office I used to work at.
  • Agile software development has brought many innovative changes to the web technologies.
  • The 'card wall' feature of Mingle is really useful becasue it allows you to easily see each project in the work group, and who is working on it.
  • you are definitely right maltese puppies! that's also what i'd like most to Mingle!
    we are using it especially when we have a group project..
  • The tracking and reporting work particularly well with the visual layout of the software.

    It's easy to see how well everyone else is progressing in your work group.
  • We use this in our office. It does what it says and the features you speak of are really nice.
  • Hey thanks for your interest! Also checkout www.pivotaltracker.com. I've been using that more recently.

    Dan
  • CeciliaJones
    Interesting - I will have to look at Mingle. I'm always interested in trying out new web-based project portfolio management software apps.
  • Hi This is MAG Studios i found your Post on "Mingle For Agile Software Development" it's really rock and so much useful information for the person who is Connected to Software Development Thanks.
  • Your recommendation had been really pretty interesting, I will check it out to see for my self.
  • I have also found mingle for Agile software very helpful in my projects but one thing I wish Mingle had that causes a major gap in my regular status reports is the ability to correlate many user stories to a project.
  • Guest
    great
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