How is Tactyle Different from other Agile Tools?

In recent years, there have been two main types of agile project management tools: database-centric and kanban-centric.  Tactyle is based on a different paradigm, Story Mapping.  Here’s how the three paradigms compare:

Paradigm Description Examples Position of user story on screen
 
   
Database These tools are based on a database of user stories. On top of the database, they have various reports and data entry forms. They tend to be marketed as ALM tools. Rally
Microsoft TFS 		= result of current sort and filter
 
   
Kanban board In these tools, you move stories, from one part of the screen to another, to signal changes in their status AgileZen
TargetProcess
 		 = status of story
 
   
Story Map In a Story-Mapping tool, the screen is divided into
a grid of large vertical and horizontal bands.

The horizontal bands represent releases (releases are business-meaningful stages in the product’s evolution). The first release is at the top, and the last release is at the bottom.   Thus a story’s vertical position represents which release it is in, and therefore its priority.

The vertical bands represent User Activities, which are high-level activities of interest to the user. (E.g. Navigate and Carry Passengers our aircraft example.)  Thus a story’s horizontal position represents which User Activity it is in, and therefore which part of the system’s functionality it relates to.

 Tactyle = both the story’s priority AND and its functional categorization
 
   

There are several benefits of the Story Mapping approach, including:

  1. With the exception of deliberate re-prioritization, user stories don’t move. This lets users “get their bearings” spatially, and become familiar with the “lie of the land” in terms of how their project is structured.
    To illustrate the benefit of not moving things, consider this real-world example: imagine if everything was in a different place whenever you entered your kitchen! It would be real hard to find your stuff!  It’s just so much easier if everything stays put.  The same applies to user stories.
       
  2. The tool can encompass your entire backlog.  Also, because Story Mapping tends to keep related stories adjacent to each other, the backlog can be understood much more easily than a traditional list.
    (If you’re wondering about the practicality of displaying everything in one big Story Map, note that Tactyle can comfortably display 70 to 100 user stories per monitor.  For Maps that are even bigger still, we’ve added purpose-built navigation features.)
     
  3. The tool tends to have a “whole of project” focus, whereas other tools tend to focus most strongly on the current iteration.   (In Tactyle, you can indeed see the status of current work,  but that work is always shown in the context of the overall Story Map.)
     
  4. Since it shows the whole project, Story Mapping is particularly important if you have a fixed price, fixed scope, or both.  (Couple the Story Mapping with Earned-Value burn charts, as we do in Tactyle, you get a very powerful tool for managing these challenging projects.)