FAQ: What is the relation between ZenTao and Scrum?

Visitors to ZenTao website would often ask what ZenTao is and how ZenTao is related to Scrum. ZenTao users are usually familiar with Agile and would like to implement Agile in their team. So let's see what Agile and Scrum are first.

Agile and Scrum

Agile and Scrum are similar to the diet and the recipe. A healthy diet is a set of methods and practices based on principles and values. A recipe for Caesar salad would be a framework you can use to implement your healthy diet.

Agile is a software development approach to create and respond to change. It is a way to deal with an uncertain and turbulent environment. All agile methods emphasize "teamwork, frequent deliveries of working software, close customer collaboration, and the ability to respond quickly to change"1. One thing that separates Agile from other approaches to software development is the focus on the people doing the work and how they work together. Solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams utilizing the appropriate practices for their context. For more about Agile, you can refer to What is Agile on Agile Alliance and Agile Manifesto..

Scrum is one of many agile methods to implement Agile development, including Extreme Programming(XP), Adaptive System Development(ASD), Feature Driven Development(FDD), Kanban, Crystal Clear and Lean Software Development (LSD). Scrum proved especially effective in iterative and incremental knowledge transfer. Scrum is now widely used for products, services, and the management of the parent organization. The essence of Scrum is a small team of people that is highly flexible and adaptive to the environment. In this way, the Scrum team can deliver the software faster and get the feedback from the market and adjust its plan.

ZenTao and Scrum

ZenTao is a tool to facilitate Scrum and make a fast delivery happen.

ZenTao is an open source tool based on Scrum.Scrum is very pragmatic and easy to operate, so it fits in the fast iterative development of software projects. However, Scrum only defines the core management framework. There are still many details and processes that have to be extended and developed.

Based on the philosophy of Scrum and with the observation of the current development situations in China, ZenTao integrates bug management, test case management, release management and document management, and it completely covers the entire lifecycle of software development. In ZenTao, the concepts of product, project, and test are clearly defined. Product team, development team and QA team coordinate and check with each other while they function differently. The three teams interact with each other through stories, tasks, and bugs, and eventually deliver the product with quality. It is not only a Scrum tool but also an application lifecycle management. Based on Scrum, but not limited to Scrum.

In ZenTao,

Product Owner: manage products, stories, plans, releases and roadmaps;
Scrum team: manage projects, tasks, teams, builds and Burndown charts;
QA team: manage bugs, test cases, test tasks and test results;

ZenTao also has other features that will help smooth your project management, including Document, Report, Company, Repository, Feedback, etc. The flexible extension and API enable the integration with other tools. Read What is ZenTao for more.

Conclusion

Agile and Scrum are get more applied in software development management since 1990s. ZenTao, as a Scrum tool, has involved in Scrum and open source ten years ago. As years goes by, ZenTao has been added with more features and now is an Application Lifecycle Management, covering the complete software development process. Choosing a right tool can do half the work, twice the effect. Therefore, your should try ZenTao, the Scrum tool that is the first choice for over hundreds of thousands users.