It seems everyone is obsessed with Scrum tools these days. Every time we run a Scrum course people ask “what tools do you recommend?” The answer is always the same – whiteboards, index cards and post-it notes. The reasons for this are many. In my coaching work I see team after team try one of the myriad of tools available and the result is almost always the same – a slow Scrum uptake.
There are however some benefits to using a tool. Mainly that tools can be fast, easily backed up and are good at manipulating data. So developed a simple tool that gives the best of both worlds.
We have developed a Product Backlog tool in Excel that allows Scrum Teams to manage the Product Backlog in one centralised, backed up and shared place but to still print the product backlog items on index cards with acceptance criteria on the reverse. While the tool doesn’t replace the power of a team armed with Sharpies and a pile of index cards, it does allow the product backlog to be easily ordered and for items to be quickly re-written without re-writing.
We have open sourced the tool and we encourage you to use it, modify it and adapt it for your teams. If you come up with good revisions then let us know and we can post the updates for others to use. Note – you use the tool at your own risk. We do not support it!
