First we heard about Pivotal Tracker (PT) around a year ago. We had a positive experience using Goplanapp.com for several projects before, but unfortunately we couldn’t wait till version 2.0. And the Goplanapp 1.0 version did not meet our requirements for project management. We also tried to use Basecamp, but Basecamp appeared to be very good for collaboration but not for project development process.

We started using PT for one of our projects and I must say that it took a while we got used to it. So if you are new to agile development, don’t be scared and try to use it to see how it works. The first challenge was to understand and accept what was a story-based project planning and why we needed to used stories instead of tasks.

The main difference of story-based planning is that stories are to be formulated from the prospective of the user in most cases. For example a story name example is: «User must receive welcome e-mail after registration». Story description must have more detailed explanation of what user should receive. Earlier we just named such task as: «We must send a welcome e-mail to the each new registered user». Perhaps you think there’s no difference, but you are wrong:)

From the first day we also tried to follow all the recommendations of the PT and one of the recommendations regarding the preparation of stories was that the story should be stated briefly and in one sentence.

I must say that after one month of working in PT we were so accustomed to the story-based planning, that now it is difficult to recall how we formulated the tasks before this =) This approach allows a very precise formulation of the problem, and as you know well formulated problem is partially solved.

Also, story-based planning approach really helped us to see new functionality features or problems from the perspective of users, which in my opinion is a must for creating a successful web application. In addition, story-based planning is good because stories are easily understood by customers. Our clients have a clear understanding of what stories we are working on.