Some of these tools are designed to track different forms of development, including projects that are more centrally managed, but they are flexible enough to be used for agile development. There are dozens of software products designed to help managers set priorities and developers write code that addresses them. They don't impose strict schedules and roles, but merely make it easier for the developers to self-manage and converge on their goals. The best way to do this is to deploy a set of good tools that help track the project and organize the team's progress. The key to success in agile development is to enable flexibility while maintaining organization. Studies have found that more than one quarter of development teams have used at least some agile methods in the last year. While some hidebound developers saw only chaos in the idea of letting developers roam freely and organize their own workflow, the idea has caught on. The programmers craved a chance to unleash their intuitive and improvisational ways of collaborating.

The idea began when developers chafed under managers who imposed highly structured plans with fixed roles and inflexible schedules, pushing programmers into tight boxes. For the last decade, one of the hottest questions for development teams has been whether or not to embrace the idea of agile development, a philosophy that encourages developers to be flexible and creative in delivering just what the user needs.

Coding project planning tools