Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) is an enterprise-ready project management solution, now from Atlassian (acquired May 2019).
$27,000
per year
MindManager
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
MindManager is a mind mapping and project management tool that aims to boost users’ productivity. It is designed to facilitate a wide range of project types, and includes cross-platform functionality and 3rd party integrations.
The Atlassian Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) tools help keep our scrum teams moving in the right direction. It gives Sr. Executives visibility into the progress of our digital transformation efforts. It provides information to our program manager to create the necessary artifacts to justify continued funding of our initiatives. It also supports the SAFe framework, along with some others. And the Atlassian Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) tools provide integration to other tools that we use in our portfolio.
I love to outline in MM and its ability to link related maps. Great help to me as a writer! I don't love the export of the outlines. Needs to be a cleaner, simpler look. I work around it, though. I rated the above question 6 only because it's too expensive. I've had it for years and, until recently, got almost every upgrade. I can't afford it now and may have to look for an alternative to keep updated software. Bummer!
Effective Sprint planning : Sprint planning can be done using Planning Poker in AgileCraft by clicking Team > Manage > Other > Estimation Games very effectively for distributed teams.
Team Capacity Allocation Report: After tasks are created at team or program level, the report from AgileCraft cab be pulled and can be verified that no team member is under or over allocated. A report can be generated by navigating to Team > Manage > Assign Tasks.
Effective Requirement trace-ability: To maintain requirements trace-ability follow the steps below:
Upload test cases against the story/requirement. once uploaded test cases will be visible under that story
Execute Test cases in AgileCraft and mark them as Pass/Fail based on the actual outcome
Based on test results, The acceptance criterion's can be marked as “Pass” or “Fail” & if marked failed corresponding defect can be logged & can be attached with the story
So against each story we can easily see whether all test cases been executed or not & which acceptance criterion's are failed & how many defects are in open or close state.
Daily Scrum: In AgileCraft, the option to run a daily stand-up is available from Team > Manage > Daily Standups. Selecting the sprint number opens the daily stand-up meeting window in which each team member's tasks are visible and hours can be burned against them. Conduct Scrum meetings in AgileCraft, and burn each associate hour against the tasks created during the meeting. The burn-down chart can be generated & viewed during the stand-up to check whether the team is on track.
The initial ticket creation screen lacks some important features, such as assigning "point values" (a measure of effort needed for the ticket).
The browser needs to be manually refreshed to see new tickets, which can make things confusing when several people in a meeting are simultaneously creating tickets.
The interface on some smaller portions of the software are sometimes difficult to understand.
I find formatting a challenge. Example, make all the boxes the same format and fonts so when you add a box, it understands the format of the top level box.
I have played around with some of the templates but find creating my own each time is better route. The project plan template is very good but I find myself deleting boxes and again, takes more time than creating a new map every time.
I try to get colleagues to use MM but they are intimidated by the UI. I am really comfortable with it but to them it can look more complex than it really is.
I feel the main issues of the old Mindjet seem to be gone with the Corel purchase. With the huge advance of sharing via browser HTML even 1 user can affect many. And, actually, using MM kind of forced my rigid brain to rethink how I categorize and classify information/projects.
The idea of paying $69USD for an annual cost is more than fair and a great model for Corel/Mindjet to keep rolling out improvements!
Most of the things are easily manageable except certain things that are hidden and you need to ask teammates who are aware of how they can link attachements in the comment section and so on.
MindManager is very intuitive. The user interface is not cluttered and the ribbon icons are easy to understand. Several excellent "how-to" videos are available on the MindManager site as well as on YouTube. MindManager starts quickly and the user interface is very responsive. Launching other programs from MindManager such as Excel is very fast and issue free. The browsing feature is lightning fast. The drag-and-drop capability is also very fast and reliable.
The application is quick and responsive. We are able to produce mindmaps and reports with ease. The program is not complicated at all and integrates well with software and programs like Microsoft Outlook and Teams, which we truly appreciate.
Overall support from Jira team is good. It comes at an additional price but it is very efficient. There are no long wait times, you get a dedicated team to look into your issues. The support is available throughout the year and they keep a record of your issues. Overall we are very satisfied with the support they have provided us over the years, it has been very effective for the price that we pay.
I have called technical support a few times. During the COVID Crisis, I called a few times repeatedly due to a rush request. The technical support guy called me back in minutes. He somehow knew that I had called repeatedly and wanted to make sure my issue was resolved immediately
The videos are not well categorized...I had to do a bit of digging to get what I wanted and many videos on older versions. If Mindjet was to improve the titles used that would help.
Microsoft Azure Devops won't have the major functionality of software management like Jira. The customization provided by Jira is having a cutting edge over any project management tool. Adds-on and Plugins feature in the Jira Tool make it as perfect as desired task management tool for any company. One of the best Agile based Project Management Tools.
Both are equally good. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is used to get the models in a more technical format in comparison to the MindManager. MindManager is easier to use in comparison to Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. MindManager makes collaboration easy and can be understood by a layman and does not need to have specific software training.
It has positively impacted our tech teams, allowing them to better organize the tasks and items they are working on and has greatly improved their ability to communicate & review these tasks with other teams.
I believe it negatively impacted other departments as lengthy training was required by many associates to attempt using the tool, only to find out it didn't meet our needs, therefore much time was wasted.
When scope planning before I was introduced to this tool, I needed to make one master Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the entire project and move on. With MindMapper, I typically generate about 20 WBS-like charts throughout the project, which encouraged conversation with staff members. The major key in such ease of use has been some well thought out and very intuitive keystroke planning that allows me to keep up with the free flow of ideas.
This software's cross-functional capability allowed 10 engineers to create their projects directly within their own environment without use of a virtual machine.
