My Love Hate Relationship with Agile Tools

Everyone else seems to love agile tools, so why do I get so annoyed?

I am working with a client team who are implementing a customer management platform using agile ways of working. They are also using one of the popular agile tools (hint — it rhymes with lira). In a recent daily standup meeting, I was reminded why I get so annoyed about agile tools.

Background

I have a history of complaining about agile tools. It isn’t that I don’t find them useful, and in some cases, absolutely essential to success. It is just that the design of the tools and the way many people implement them tend to undermind team work and collaboration. Hence the reason I wrote in 2018 about the 9 Pitfalls of Using Agile Tools.

The thing is, I think tools are helpful and necessary. Tools provide the following benefits:

1. Tools provide a centralized, single source of truth. No more shipping spreadsheets around or struggling with which is the most up to date version. Tools handle all that complexity in the background.
2. Access from anywhere. Unlike a physical taskboard, you can conveniently access your online agile tool from anywhere and see the latest udpates. With the majority of teams being distributed today, this is…