Using Agile and fastProject
/One of the concepts around Agile is frequent builds and releases to a customer. This way you obtain early feedback, and that feedback can be integrated into future builds and releases. All this is done before the next major (more formal) release.
In addition, leading up to a build and release, the project is organized in terms of Sprints.
The Problem
In Agile, builds occur at fixed times (e.g. a build is done every Friday) and Sprints have a fixed duration. However, the FTTM methodology follows a critical path schedule, where dates can change each week (or even daily) when the schedule is updated.
So following an Agile approach, how do I know what feature will be ready by which software build if the dates are continually changing?
The Solution
The Iteration Report feature in fastProject (located in the Additional Tools group) attempts to marry these two concepts together.
Software features are identified and flagged. The fixed interval dates (whether builds or Sprints) are identified and added to the schedule. Once setup, the user simply clicks the "Generate Iteration Report" to generate a table that lists what features will be ready for each build/Sprint and how far off that feature is to the date below). This report can be used in a daily scrum meeting.
Of course this is feature is not limited to software and can be used anytime there is a need to identify what will be ready relative to a fixed group of dates.