Unlocking Dynamic Efficiency: the Power of Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP) tools are software applications designed to help organisations plan, manage and track their agile development processes across multiple teams, projects, and business units.

They typically offer a range of features including project and portfolio management, big room planning, release management and reporting and analytics.

Using enterprise agile planning tools can help organisations improve productivity, reduce waste and deliver high-quality products faster.

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”

Henry Ford

What are agile enterprise planning tools?

EAP tools offer organisations a transformative approach to achieving dynamic efficiency and accelerating business growth. These tools facilitate seamless collaboration among teams, fostering a culture of agility and adaptability across the entire organisation.

These tools provide a centralised platform where teams can collaborate, plan and track their work in real-time, ensuring transparency and visibility into progress and outcomes.

Market growth

The EAP tool market has been growing rapidly in recent years as more organisations adopt agile methodologies for their software development processes.

The global agile project management market size is expected to reach USD 12.13 billion by the end of 2024, recording a growth rate at a CAGR of 18.7% during the period of 2018-2024.

The market includes a variety of vendors offering different types of EAP tools, ranging from basic project management software to more advanced solutions that support scaled agile frameworks like SAFe, LeSS, Scrum@Scale and Nexus.

The market is expected to continue to grow as more organisations embrace agile methodologies and seek to improve their software development processes. With the increasing demand for agile tools, there is also likely to be a rise in innovation and new product development, leading to a more diverse and competitive marketplace.

Benefits of EAP tools

An EAP tool offers organisations improved collaboration, enhanced visibility, increased agility, scalability, reduced risk, standardisation, and continuous improvement. It does this by facilitating communication, enabling data-driven decision-making, responding to changing demands, identifying potential issues early on, improving consistency and providing real-time feedback.

Choosing the right EAP tool

Selecting the right EAP tool can be a challenging task as there are many options available in the market.

Defining assessment criteria

Clear assessment criteria allow organisations to identify the key features and functionalities that are essential for their agile planning tool, ensuring the selected tool is aligned with their needs and goals.

It also enables organisations to compare different tools objectively. Identifying strengths and weaknesses and determining which one is the best fit for their organisation.

Consider the scalability of the tool and whether it can support your organisation’s growth and changing needs over time.

Check if the tool has strong security features to protect your organisation’s sensitive data. Look for features like data encryption, multi- factor authentication, and access controls to ensure the tool is secure.

Performing a tooling assessment

Follow these steps to perform an assessment:

1. Identify your organisation’s requirements.

2. Make a list of tools.

3. Compare features and evaluate ease of use.

4. Check integration capabilities, assess scalability, analyse pricing and read reviews.

5. Try a demo or a free trial of the tools that meet your requirements before making a final decision.

Tools overview

The growing demand for IT adaptability is increasing the uptake of agile and enterprise agile planning tools. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant on EAP tools, assessed 17 market vendors to aid leaders in decision making.

The Magic Quadrant listed 6 tool vendors as “leader”, the ones demonstrating a strong vision, through agile thinking incorporated agile practices and developer collaboration through DevOps. These leaders possess a vast market reach and adoption in addition to their growth and market presence. They have created marketplaces that offer additional features via partner collaboration. They also have well-developed networks for training and implementation, and the capacity to operate globally.

Challenges in adopting EAP tools

Adopting an EAP tool can also present challenges, such as:

• Resistance to and managing change
• Integrating with existing tools
• Data migration
• Customisation
• Managing complexity
• Cost
• Security

These all require technical expertise, extra development and adequate training and support.

Lessons learned

Capgemini Invent understands that adopting EAP tools can be a challenging process, but organisations can leverage and learn from the valuable lessons we collected along the journey of many transformations and tooling adoptions.

These include starting small and scaling up, investing in training and support, communicating benefits, tailoring the tool to organisational needs, integrating with existing tools, monitoring and adjusting and celebrating successes. It’s crucial to balance customisation with out-of-the- box capabilities and to ensure a smooth integration. Regular monitoring and adjustments are essential to improve adoption and achieve the desired outcomes. Celebrating successes helps build morale and encourage continued adoption and improvement.

Conclusion

Each tool discussed offers unique features and functionalities that can support agile planning and execution. However, the ultimate decision should be based on a careful evaluation of factors like scalability, customisation capabilities, integration options, ease of use, reporting and analytics capabilities and alignment with the organisation’s existing processes and tools.

As a trusted advisor and consulting partner, Capgemini Invent plays a pivotal role in assisting clients throughout their journey of selecting the right EAP tool. Our expertise in agile transformation and deep knowledge of available tools enables us to guide organisations in making informed decisions.

We have observed the valuable lessons and common challenges faced during the tool selection process. It is crucial to involve stakeholders from different levels and functions within the organisation to ensure their buy-in and align the tool’s capabilities with their needs. A clear understanding of the organisation’s current state and future aspirations is essential for selecting a tool that can accommodate growth and evolving requirements.

Capgemini Invent helps clients overcome these challenges by providing comprehensive assessments, facilitating workshops, conducting interviews and analysing existing processes and tools.

How can we help?

No matter your starting point, Capgemini Invent can help you turn resource criticality into business opportunities. Contact Stefano Giovannini and connect on LinkedIn.