What Is Pivotal Tracker & How to Use It in Project Management

There are often dozens of moving parts throughout every project. Each one brings its own set of unique demands and objectives to meet. And if you’re a project manager with project stakeholders, chances are you are always trying to find new ways to enhance your work.

Unexpected downtime and disruptions in project flow can lead to inefficiency and extra costs. So it can be beneficial to explore new techniques or tools to try and measure the impact they could have. There are lots of project management software that can help manage the details for increased profitability.

One of those project tools is Pivotal Tracker. Here is everything you need to know about it and how you can use it in project management.

Here’s What We’ll Cover:

What Is Pivotal Tracker?

How to Use Pivotal Tracker in Project Management

Key Takeaways

What Is Pivotal Tracker?

When it comes to project management, some different styles can get implemented depending on your needs. It might also depend on the size of your project team or how many partners you work with.

Pivotal Tracker is a type of agile project management tool. The cloud-based software makes communication, collaboration and task management as easy as possible. But its core function is to help you monitor and track specific tasks by the minute.

Some agile project managers use the Pivotal Tracker software to help estimate how much time is needed to complete each task. You can also use it to look into how efficient past teams were and overall workforce management.

The software is regularly updated with minor changes instead of having one big update. This is meant to help provide more responsive and efficient software.

How to Use Pivotal Tracker in Project Management

A lot of the project management tools available have an easy user interface and are relatively simple to learn. There’s a bit more of a learning curve when it comes to Pivotal Tracker since it’s not just a generic tool that’s meant for everyone. But once you get a better sense of how it works it can become an incredibly powerful tool.

Basically, you begin by brainstorming all your ideas before assigning individual tasks. Tasks are labeled as ‘Stories’ and they are broken down by a point structure instead of minutes or hours. The software will then help guide you through the entire process from start to finish.

Main Benefits of Pivotal Tracker

Pivotal Tracker offers a wide range of functions depending on your needs. But there are some main benefits worth highlighting that set it apart from other project management platforms.

• Real-time collaboration and increased visibility. You can include each team member within the same virtual room, which can help make managing projects more efficient. Priorities can get discussed and the entire team will be properly aligned with what they need to get done.
• Ability to develop realistic plans. Pivotal Tracker is great at helping you stay on track to reach your targets. You can receive automatic predictions for certain milestones or completion dates. And this can get organized based on the performance of your team throughout the agile process.
• Respond to evolving needs. Automatic planning helps to keep your entire team on the same page. You won’t need to manage individual timelines or try and meet unrealistic expectations.

Pivotal Tracker also has a tool called velocity. The velocity tool can monitor the overall speed and current trajectory of your project. It’s meant to provide insights into when tasks will get completed and automatically calculates the timelines.

This is important information that you can use to get a better sense of your employees’ workload. You can then plan ahead for anything you might need to successfully complete your project. Employees will have everything they need for their tasks and will understand the associated timelines.

Key Takeaways

Pivotal Tracker is an excellent tool to help you forecast project deliverables. Since the software is largely based on previous project progress, you can identify trends or new opportunities. This can help you gain a competitive edge moving forward.

That all said, the biggest downfall to Pivotal Tracker is that it isn’t going to be the best tool for everyone. This is since there is a learning curve that comes with the software. It is a pretty advanced project management tool to help scale projects. If you aren’t technical or just want something simple, there are plenty of project management or collaboration software to choose from.

You don’t need to have an expansive knowledge of project management. Just make sure that you find one with the right basic features and tools for your project demands. Your development process for complex projects can become easier with any project tracking tool.

There are always things that you can do to help be more productive and as efficient as possible. Pivotal Tracker can help increase collaboration and visibility among your team members. Plus, you can develop realistic and actionable plans.

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