How to calculate combined velocity if three teams are working on a single story in a project.

Being a freelance developer for the last 10 years or so, I have seen and used almost every project management software you can think of, open-source and closed, and I have found that the "best bug tracking tool" completely depends on your process. I employ and direct teams in an Agile process that involves loose story-based requirements with point-based estimates, two-week cycles of iterative development, planning and retrospective sessions, and look-ahead and show-and-tell meetings with the stakeholders. It's important to me, then, that my tools have a method of capturing all those pieces with as much detail as I need but no more. On projects, I've successfully used Pivotal Tracker, Unfuddle, Redmine, Codebase HQ, Basecamp, Trello, and many others. I usually recommend people to Trello for light, agile management; it's essentially a digitized version of sticky notes and swim lanes. If your team actually needs a full-featured ticketing system, see Redmine (Rails), Trac (Python), or Mantis (PHP), depending on your language preference. Hosting a version of these yourself is fairly trivial, and numerous options exist for cheap or free hosted versions. For something in the middle, Github Issues is a good fit and the open-source clone GitLab.org replicates most of those features nicely. However, if you're looking for a hosted version, you're probably looking to offload that tricky "backup" thingy, and in that case, how important is your data? How proprietary? What's your business model? If you're working on an open-source project, Github will give your team a free account with private repos, issues, wikis, and the like. If you're okay with your project being "readable by all", public projects on Pivotal are still free. I'm mostly a consultant these days, leading small groups of junior or intermediate developers into a more productive, more mature, fully operational teams of senior software developers. One of the first things I teach folks is how to use a project management system... and why! It'll save your bacon if it's simple, effective, and reliable. With a few minutes of discussion about your project, I can probably help you select the right tool and service for your team. Let me know if I can help with that. Best of luck!

I've been where you are - it kind of sucks :) I think you need to do a bit of a reset on your personal mindset - Effective agile management is never a "nice to have" - its what keeps things flowing, working, and on time. To that end - do you know who your ideal client really is? Let's break down your options (per your question): Startups - If not funded, move on. You don't need equity, you need revenue. If they are funded it could be a good fit.. Creative Agencies - I think you're giving creative agencies too much credit here - you need to narrow that down. Are you looking at marketing and advertising agencies, or software development shops? The former usually is...lost?... when it comes to Agile, so you'll have a bit of educational work involved, the latter more than likely is already agile by nature. I've also found that sometimes agencies will shy away from outsourcing things like project management (its a control issue). Solo guys - this all comes down to one question - "Do they have money?" I'm sure you feel a bit like you're in a rock and a hard place. There are clearly some variables here that I'm not covering, but would in a chat. The bottom line is that you need to get a handle on WHO you want to work with, WHAT you are solving for them, and WHY your services are better than what they are currently doing. People buy solution, not prevention. With that in mind, you should be able to find a starting point. If you would like to have a chat, schedule one with me - My team and I do growth strategies for businesses of all sizes, and if we have a chat here on Clarity, and I think I can help, I'd be willing to do an in depth 45 minute session with you for free.

Four thoughts. First, define what maximum and minimum effort estimate is acceptable - for example, tasks should not take less than 2 hours or more than 4. Second, communicate that contingency shouldn't be included in the estimates so they aren't padded. Instead, have some room in the overall plan for tasks to slip. Third, measure actual vs. estimates to learn how the team estimates - you'll find that some people consistently over estimate, and some consistently under estimate. Show them and have them adjust course. Finally, make sure that the people estimating understand that no answer is acceptable - it is better to redirect a task than have wide guesses.

If your team is releasing updates constantly & there are edits to the list of features to do, Kanban would be the way to go. AGILE is best when everything is defined and would not change. I work in a company that worked on AGILE. But the nature of our team's work would constantly have numerous changes by the client mid-sprint. So, we shifted to Kanban

I hold scrum meetings with my developers and tech team every day, so I think a good agile software and a disciplined project manager are probably the best source for scrum and learning about it. There is nothing like a good project manager to act as a scrum master, but one experienced specifically in scrum itself. I have personally utilized YouTube as a good source for scrum meetings, but do not forget that Agile is also the counterpart to scrum meetings. If you'd like to speak about this in more depth, I'd be more than happy to work with you and show you what scrum resources have worked for me. Bruce