For software developers, there are so many ways that project management helps control how their team performs that it’s more a case of what you’re going to use rather than if you should use software to help teamwork and workflow.

Let’s look a little closer at why this is.

Making Changes & What It Affects

Any software developer using an Agile plugin will soon discover that managing the development of a new feature proves challenging. For every new feature, it brings up a host of possible issues and complexities relating to it. Make one change and it may mess up older features that already work and then no longer will. Every time you implement something new, you have to ensure nothing breaks as a result of the changes to avoid the “one step forward, two steps back” problem.

As such, a new feature must be crafted carefully with a good eye looking for negative consequences to such changes. Of course, this is how new bugs are introduced in software that was previously bug-free.

Multiple Features

When developing multiple new features concurrently, the potential problems are magnified. The need for project management tools such as the Redmine agile plugin, allowing teams of developers to track what development work is being done at the present time, is increasing. Different specialist teams can see when other parts of the software are worked on and can confer with members of those teams to ensure no conflict arises that would prevent full functionality.

For project management in Redmine, agile development teams, along with those fully versed in Kanban and Scrum (and their planning variations), are better prepared. Team leaders can plan development sprints to push through specific code changes to complete a software update within only a few days. Parts of the task may be broken down into story points with individual staff responsible for their completion and accountable for how far they have gotten. Breaking tasks down using Kanban methodologies is also possible to ensure no one on the team is overloaded and unlikely to hit their targets in time. This should ideally reduce the workload and unnecessary pressure build-up on employees.

See the Whole Board

Being able to see all the future tasks, those in progress and ones already completed on a project makes it easier for project managers to monitor progress. For instance, if there’s a need to refactor monolithic to microservices, having visibility into all stages enables efficient management. This entails dividing the software into smaller, standalone microservices for independent deployment. Gaining a comprehensive and all-encompassing perspective is akin to having a view of the entire chessboard, facilitating strategic decision-making, and ensuring seamless execution.

Likewise, being able to see the broad picture enables swift identification of areas experiencing delays or requiring additional programming support. It also aids in recognizing opportunities to refine task definitions and role assignments, thereby expediting agile software development across diverse contexts.

That being said, the whole point of using agile principles is to develop an initial version of a software package and then subsequent updates in a sequence at a rapid clip. No longer is the 18-24-month software development cycle going to work. A good example of this is mobile app development where a new version of many popular apps is released every few days with new features, minor bug fixes, and small tweaks.

Seeing the big picture and keeping on top of all aspects of software development is necessary to “leave no code behind.” When one part of an app isn’t finished, then it lets the whole side down. With proper project management and the use of sound, fully established development principles, it’s possible for software development teams to make great strides to take an initial idea to a live app and push out better versions over a short span of time.