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Agile Hive

Score7.5 out of 10

39 Reviews and Ratings

What is Agile Hive?

The world of work is constantly changing. Agile work processes in particular are becoming increasingly popular. Even large companies are trying to introduce agile working methods. For many, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is the right solution for their agile teams. However, implementing SAFe with all its features such as providing reports, visualizing dependencies and automated documentation is not always easy in reality. Many companies spend a lot of time and money searching for the right software. With Agile Hive, the vendor states they have developed a solution that makes it easy to implement the Scaled Agile Framework in an organization. As an out-of-the-box solution, Agile Hive is designed to make SAFe as intuitive and easy as possible - all behind a firewall.

Top Performing Features

  • Velocity Calculation

    Product uses historical data to calculate team velocity and help understand how much time future work will take.

    Category average: 7

  • Dependencies and Blockers

    Product allows tasks to be blocked or to block other tasks, communicating dependencies to team members.

    Category average: 7.3

  • Support for Agile Methodology

    Agile is a time boxed, iterative approach to development that builds software incrementally instead of trying to deliver it all at once near the end.

    Category average: 8.5

Areas for Improvement

  • Visual planning tools

    Includes visual tools such as pinboards, mind-maps, or charts for collaborative brainstorming and/or workflow planning.

    Category average: 7.2

  • Task Management

    This includes the ability to plan, track, collaborate and report on tasks.

    Category average: 8.3

  • Gantt Charts

    Gantt charts are charts that show tasks or events along the y-axis displayed against time along the x-axis.

    Category average: 7.8

Agile Hive makes your PI planning less chaotic

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Agile Hive is used for our value train within a SAFe setup. Every quarter we organize a so-called Product Increment (PI) Planning, where we plan all Features and Enablers in Agile Hive. Based on the priority of the Product Manager all teams plan their Features and Enablers accordingly to the sprints that are determined by the Release Train Engineer and set up in Agile Hive. The teams then create User Stories and estimate them and based on their sprint velocity (defined in Agile Hive) Product Owners can see how many Features and Enablers are realistic in one quarter (Product Increment). Further, dependencies across teams can be defined and made visible in Agile Hive, so that the plan is feasible. Without Agile Hive it would be hard or impossible to plan across several teams within a value train and to manage all dependencies. Additionally, with Agile Hive the plan is more realistic, so what can be achieved within one quarter in product development.

Pros

  • manage & visualize dependencies across teams
  • visualize capacity within a time frame
  • show priorities and plan accordingly

Cons

  • it is not possible to plan if teams have different sprint length
  • zoom into one sprint and then also zoom out to have big picture
  • names of user stories are not good to read because of static big picture

Return on Investment

  • More efficient planning of product increment (less time wasted)

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Jira Software and Miro

Other Software Used

Miro, Jira Software, Atlassian Confluence

Make product planning transparent and fun

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a product owner I use Agile Hive in a Scrum/Agile setup, but not SAFe. It is used for planning the product with the team for a specified amount of time. The most used case is roadmapping and visualizing dependencies in the team and across teams.

Pros

  • Roadmapping in terms of defining epics and planning them across a timeline and across teams.
  • Showing dependencies within teams and across teams and over time horizon.
  • Create transparency throughout the product organization and teams about what is planned.

Cons

  • Agile Hive - SAFE in Jira is heavily focused on SAFe, but it should be oriented around all other scaling Scrum frameworks.
  • Time horizon and iterations should be flexible.

Most Important Features

  • Roadmapping
  • Dependencies
  • Transparency
  • Various layers
  • Jira Integration

Return on Investment

  • More transparency.
  • Better product decisions.
  • Saving time and resources.
  • Less critical dependencies.

Efficient Tool For Scaled Agile Framework Implementation

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Agile Hive - SAFe in Jira to manage the project to simplify the implementation and the execution of Scaled Agile Framework. It is a great product by Atlassian. The core application is Enterprise Agile Planning for our project. Also, for the portfolio and resource loading within and inside the company and projects. Portfolio SAFe and Large Solution SAFe are the most used configuration in our case.

Pros

  • Scaled Agile Framework
  • Enterprise Agile Planning
  • API Capabilities
  • Customer Support
  • Setting up roadmaps

Cons

  • Probably UI but nothing else, it is already efficient in the purpose it should serve

Most Important Features

  • Project Management
  • Backlog management
  • Agile Board management
  • Scrum processes management

Return on Investment

  • Improvement in the efficiency of the Teams by automating the Agile processes
  • Easy for Scrum masters to manage the Scrum processes
  • Better management of Agile boards

My experience with Agile Hive - SAFe in Jira

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The integration aspect has been very beneficial to have the work from Agile Hive - SAFe in Jira be interconnected in a fluent matter which allows artifacts/documentation, all sorts of processes and reports, and finally hierarchies to be integrated visually into Agile Hive - SAFe in Jira. This provides a shared mission and vision amongst all relevant stakeholders working towards the same goal but most importantly it drives alignment with other workstreams within the organization.

Pros

  • Team's progress.
  • Risk Management.
  • Visual representations - Dashboards.

Cons

  • I believe the training and support could be more hands on and easier.
  • The Agile Hive - SAFe in Jira product can be a bit robust to understand.
  • Having Knowledge transfer videos can help more than documentations.

Most Important Features

  • Risk Management.
  • Sprint and Team's progress.
  • Product Planning.
  • Visibility of progress and objectives in one same place/tool.

Return on Investment

  • The management of most data managed within the same tool.
  • Reaction times are far more quicker and prompt.
  • Alignment with other work streams or cross functional teams.

Other Software Used

Jira Software, Atlassian Confluence, Lucidchart