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Introduction
Kovair Agile Solution is an implementation of Agile based on SCRUM methodology using Kovair Platform. Kovair has extended SCRUM methodology to implement various tools necessary to implement Agile in a distributed development scenario. One major differentiator of Kovair Agile Solution from some other Agile products from other vendors is its configurability - using the Kovair platform the Agile Solution can be extended and further configured to incorporate any organizational need which go beyond the definition of SCRUM and Agile methodology. Moreover, since Kovair uses the same platform for implementing ALM Studio for more traditional iterative methodology and ITSM Studio for ITIL V3 implementation, all three solutions can be mixed in a tightly integrated manner within a single tool interface.
List of Entities
Kovair Agile Solution supports the following Artifacts/ Entities/ Objects: Projects contains multiple Releases Releases contains multiple Sprints Sprints With multiple durations from 1 week to 6 weeks Product Backlogs Categorized as Epic, Features, User stories Daily Scrum Meeting In a distributed development daily SCRUM meeting happens remotely even sometime asynchronously. Kovair implementation of virtual daily SCRUM meeting captures all the major meeting aspects. Test Cases Implementing more traditional Test Management approaches integrated with Agile to enforce testing of selected Product Backlog by Traceability Relations. Issues/ Changes a complete Issues management solution integrated with Agile including custom visual issues process design and implementations.
Managing Entities
Releases
Kovair Agile Solution supports multi-Sprint Releases. The Backlog items belong to multiple Releases and multiple Sprints. At each Sprint and Release level the total estimated efforts are summed-up. A Roadmap report shows Backlog items in a Hierarchy of Release and Sprints.
Backlogs
The Backlog Items are assigned to different users independent of their locations. Kovair Agile Solution being 100% browser based, any user can access it from anywhere anytime. Reports show Backlog items grouped by Release, Sprint and Assigned Users.
Kovair offers a number of tools to manage a large number of Backlogs. Backlogs can be categorized into Epics which are very high level requirements, Features that an Epic is broken into and further User Stories that are linked to a Feature. These include custom Views, Filters, Text Search, ID Search. The Views allow dynamic multiple nested grouping of Backlog with custom display fields and ordering.
Sprints
A Release consists of multiple Sprints. Each Sprint consists of multiple Backlog items. Each Backlog Item has an assigned user and estimated effort. Kovair Agile Solution calculates the Sprint start and finish dates based on the included Backlogs. The Backlog items may be moved from one Sprint to another to manage the Sprint schedule.
Risks
Kovair Agile Solution includes a separate Risk Management feature. The Risks can be entered, Tracked and related to Backlog Items.
Traceability Relationships
Using Kovair's industry leading Traceability Relation, feature linking can be done between User Stories, between User Stories and other Backlog items, Sprints and Risks. Using Kovair's Traceability relations the User Stories can be linked to Test cases Using Kovair's Traceability relations the User Stories can be linked to Defects. Using Kovair's Traceability relations the User Stories can be linked to Codes or Change Items. The following screenshot displays Kovair Traceability View by which users can get a complete visibility to all the artifacts that are linked to one another which eventually would facilitate in either tracing forward or backward starting from any particular artifact.
Collaboration
Ranking of a Backlog Item
Kovair Agile Solution has a collaborative ranking tool which allows multiple users to rate each backlog item in a 1 to 10 scale against various business values. These business values may include 'Additional Revenue Potential', 'Competitive Advantage' etc. Each value can have a weightage factor. Based on various ratings from multiple users Kovair automatically calculates a normalized score for each Backlog which can be used for prioritizing Backlog.
The following screenshot shows a list of Kovair Tasks for the respective Owners, that were generated from various workspaces.
Kovair supports multi-threaded discussions in terms of Contextual Comments. Kovair has a built-in Comments section that can be exposed to the users via system pre-defined or custom defined forms. The purpose of this section is to enable users to carry out multi-threaded discussions in the context of each Backlog. The discussions are entered either as a New Comment or Reply to an existing comment. Comments can be in the form of rich text with all sorts of formatting and even embedded images. Kovair allows users to include multiple attachments to their comments. The attachments can be simple Notes, any type of Files (Word document, spreadsheet, image etc.) and URL. These multi-threaded discussions are saved in the context of the version of a Backlog.
Automation
Process Automation
Kovair has the industry's leading Process Engine - Omniprocess. Using a drag-and-drop graphical designer an Agile process can be designed, implemented, enforced and automated. The process will automatically create Tasks for one or more users based on Roles they play. When the tasks are completed the process creates a new set of tasks for a new set of users. The following is a screenshot of User Story process.
Reporting
Kovair Agile Solution includes multiple reporting engines - HTML, Crystal, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Both textual and graphical metrics reports can be displayed on custom Dashboards. Each user can have several custom Dashboards based on his/ her role. Various reports include: A graphical Burn down chart is provided to track the completion of Backlog items over time.
Kovair provides various textual reports to show the status useful for Scrum meetings.
Custom Fields
Kovair has rich custom fields types for creating metadata. A large number of custom fields of various types can be created for all different Entities including User Stories.
Document Version History Release Version 1.0 (Initial Release) Date Jan 12, 2011 Reason