Tools to Help with Agile Development

As with many things in life, the right set of tools can make a huge difference to an agile development project. There are a number of tasks that can be made much easier and simpler by employing the correct supporting tools. In this chapter, we will look at some of the tools available and how they can be used. All the tools we will look at are open-source and freely available. This is not to say that only open-source tools can be of help, merely that these tools do not cost anything to obtain and therefore the initial up-front costs involved are minimal. This means that if you wish to experiment with an agile project and want some tools to help you do that you should have little trouble obtaining them. In some of the cases, they are also commercial tools that can be used instead and depending upon your environment you may decide to/need to use those instead. Personally, I have found these open-source tools more than adequate.