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Pivotal Tracker will shut down

pivotaltracker.com

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Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#81

Post by kstrauser »

sandinmyjoints wrote: post #66

I will really miss Pivotal. Looks like my org will shift to Jira. People talk a lot about how Jira is so customizable to the point of it being problematic. But would it be possible to customize it to work somewhat like Pivotal, I wonder?

Like others have mentioned, if you like Pivotal, check out Linear first.

If you end up on Jira, once you get it configured, put the admin password in a bottle and throw it into the ocean. Do not let anyone say "you know, if we made this one little change to our workflow...", because once that dam breaks all hope is lost.

Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#82

Post by jadbox »

aantix wrote: post #47

The thing that I always liked about Pivotal is that it was visibly obvious that there was only one queue. It forced everyone to ruthlessly prioritize and make the hard decisions. In this moment, do you want me working on this bug, or this new feature? You have to decide - you get one or the other. It avoided the "Everything is a high priority" dilemma.

I LOVED Pivotal tracker for just this reason- it was way more focused. It was hands-down my favorite task tracker. Since most of my projects were code related, we eventually moved to Github Projects which is honestly very similar in being focused. The downside is that non-technical people may need to get a Github account, but it wasn't that much of an obstacle in practice.

Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#83

Post by latchkey »

RIP PT. I can't tell you how much this piece of software changed my life. Working at Pivotal (the very early days of Cloud Foundry), taught me so much about how to develop software and products. It taught me how to work closely with people (pair programming for the win!). How to iterate and pay attention to velocity. How to write stories. How to polish a turd over time. I use these skills every single day.

You will be missed old friend. Nothing else comes close.

Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#84

Post by skybrian »

bschmidt1 wrote: post #73

These guys were pioneers who set forth a lot of the patterns used in other PM software (Did they invent "Velocity"?). I hated Pivotal in the early days, but after a couple years on the job I learned to really love it especially as the newer flimsier sprint planning tools were popping up in the early web 2 days. Only Trello really "beat it" fairly - Jira was always top-down forced, and Asana only won with designers be…

We were doing “velocity” at a startup using a rack of index cards. Software is not strictly necessary when everyone is in the same room.

Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#85

Post by digitaltrees »

aantix wrote: post #74
anonymoushn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it's impossible to sign up, it looks like most prospective cloners will have to learn all the features by watching videos and learn about the exported CSV format by asking former customers for their CSVs.

If anyone is making a clone, feel free to reach out to me. jim.jones1@gmail.com Previous user of Pivotal Tracker - I'll tell you everything that I loved and hated about it. I know a couple other devout users as well that I could introduce you to.

I’ll reach out. I am planning to build it for my company

Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#86

Post by latchkey »

skybrian wrote: post #84
bschmidt1 wrote: post #73

These guys were pioneers who set forth a lot of the patterns used in other PM software (Did they invent "Velocity"?). I hated Pivotal in the early days, but after a couple years on the job I learned to really love it especially as the newer flimsier sprint planning tools were popping up in the early web 2 days. Only Trello really "beat it" fairly - Jira was always top-down forced, and Asana only won with designers be…

We were doing “velocity” at a startup using a rack of index cards. Software is not strictly necessary when everyone is in the same room.

PT's concept of velocity isn't just tracking a number. It is tracking what work will get done within a period of time based on the average amount of work done previously. It allowed PM's to actually estimate when a feature would be completed and how adding or removing stories (or people!) would impact future feature deadlines. Initial velocity was meaningless and only developed over time as an average value of a team of people working together, taking into account things like vacations and sick days. None of this could be done realtime with a rack of index cards as it was something that happened over many weeks.

Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#87

Post by larrywright »

This is sad to see. I haven't used PT in over a decade probably, but I used it heavily for 3-4 years before that. As a contrast to other "agile" tools, it was a breath of fresh air. So simple, everything was all on one screen, so easy to move things from state to state. My team loved it because they could just open it up in a window and leave it open all day, making changes as needed. I don't think I've ever seen anything since that came close to it.

I just logged in for the first time in years and found that I still had two side projects in there. Time to download them I guess.

Re: Pivotal Tracker will shut down

#90

Post by _boffin_ »

Puntergone wrote: post #77
N_A_T_E wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall the mandatory pairing as quite popular among some devs during that era. I wonder if anyone is actually still working in that manner.

Funny story, I work out of a small part of Accenture and was just today explaining to a client that this is how we work (pairing, TDD, etc.). Way back in 2018 or so we had a partnership with Pivotal and they taught us a bunch of their ways of working. It's been a challenge to maintain, especially through Covid, but a lot of the core ideas and practices are still alive. It doesn't work on every project, but man when i…

When the flow between the pair hits, it’s a beautiful thing.
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