Item: Rally Software
Rating: 8
Author: Peter Lucan

Overall Satisfaction with Rally Software

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In my organization we use Rally Software to manage our agile process and track User stories, defects and tasks and coordinate work across teams. Rally Software solves business problems like allowing our stakeholders and management to see into project progress. It also helps prioritize work and improves collaboration by allowing us to see what we are working on. It enables us to break down large features into smaller manageable user stories and tasks. Then it makes it easier to assign work and monitor sprint progress. Our use case includes sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, PI planning and reporting velocity and release status. Rally Software allows us to ensure that our development efforts align with business goals and helps us deliver features with a higher degree of predictability.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Rally Software makes it easier to split large pieces of work into smaller pieces.
Rally Software enables visibility into work progress and what work people are working on.
Rally Software makes it easier to plan work and estimate releases.

Cons

The user interface feels clunky at times and it's not the easiest to find things.
When batch moving stories it can be slow and confusing.
Rally Software has a weird session state. When I turn off my laptop and then turn it on the next day I expect when I reopen the tab that Rally Software will re log me in or at least refresh but it just brings up and alert and continuously fails. I have to reopen it on a new tab.

Return on Investment

Rally Software has made it easier to deliver projects on time. It has done this by increasing transparency and accountability across teams.
It helped us achieve business goals.
More predictable releases.
Rally Software is complex and has a steep learning curve and this can slow things done sometimes when it comes to onboarding and adoption.
At times, time is spent on Rally Software where it could just be spent doing meaningful work.

Usability

For the most part it's good but sometimes it feels a bit glitchy like when batch assigning things and searching and the site does not auto log you back in your have to reopen a new tab. From a UX point of view. It is easy to understand and easy to use.

Alternatives Considered

Atlassian Jira

Rally Software and Jira are both good. Rally Software is better at handling large scale projects. It offers advanced reporting, release tracking and portfolio management. Jira is more flexible but Rally Software is definitely better for large organizations. We selected Rally Software because our organization needed robust support for our Safe framework with detailed tracking across multiple teams and enterprise level reporting. Rally Software's ability to offer visibility into progress at all levels gave it the edge.

Key Insights

Do you think Rally Software delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Rally Software's feature set?

Yes

Did Rally Software live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Rally Software go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Rally Software again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Miro, GitHub Copilot, Figma

Likelihood to Recommend

Rally Software is well suited for large Agile or scrum teams who do sprints and it helps managing sprints and backlogs. It is well suited for organizations who want visibility into work being done and progress. Suitable for tracking is user stories, defects and release planning. Works well with CI CD too. It would not be suitable for small teams or startups. For teams that don't use agile. Teams who want lightweight tools like Jira. Companies with a limited budget.

Rally Software Feature Ratings

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Rally Software Project Management Review