Recently, Rally Software announced the acquisition of AgileZen, a web-based collaboration tool for Kanban.  In this episode of AgileTalk, Patrick Egan chats with Todd Olson, Director of Product Marketing at Rally about the exciting news.  Todd talks about how AgileZen fits into Rally's suite of products and how this acquisition will affect the agile  community.

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Interview Transcription:

Patrick Egan:

From CMC Media this is Agile Talk I’m Patrick Egan. Recently Rally Software announced the acquisition of Agile Zen a web based collaboration tool for Kanban

So here to talk with me about this acquisition and what it means to Rally’s customers is Todd Olsen Director of Product Marketing for Rally Software.

Welcome Todd

So Todd how does Agile Zen fit into Rally’s plans, and more importantly what does it mean for the entire agile community?

Todd Olsen:

What you’ll see with the Agile Zen acquisition is basically our response to a growing trend we are seeing in the industry. So Kanban is an emerging process in the agile community that seems to be gaining traction with teams that have differing styles of work. Work that is more interrupt driven or adhoc kind of like maintenance, operations or even non software teams.

And rather than just sit back and let Kanban community figure out its role in relation to other agile processes things like SCRUM, Rally really wanted to be a leader in this. And by acquiring Agile Zen it gives us an industry leading Kanban Product and it puts us in a position where we can partner with our customers tell understand how different processes map better to different styles of work in the organization and different styles can work together collaboratively and report upward so that if you are an executive you can actually get at the same level of visibility and metrics for Kanban teams that you can get for SCRUM teams and other teams as well.

Really its about not just supporting Kanban but how we can support mixed methodology that is really exciting about the acquisition of Agile Zen

Patrick Egan

Well that all sounds pretty cool and is sounds like you are really focused on the community and providing additional support for your customers. So I know that in line with that note I know you recently acquired a mobile app for the iPhone and it seems like Rally is really focusing on the end user with this announcement. Can you tell me something about this iPhone application?

Todd Olsen

Absolutely You guys know this in the media. Mobile computing has exploded and our acquisition of the iPhone app is really just our first foray into this exciting new space. Rally has really evolved to be the system of record for software development information. So all the key information whether it be requirements, defects, tests are all within Rally. So now what we see is customers they want that information They want that information their hands where they are whether it's in meetings on their mobile device or whether it's outside the office or in the airport. They want up to the minute status of their development teams and their iterations. But they also want to make updates. We have teams working around the globe. We have folks working in India with product managers in the US and you know sometimes they can unblock someone at home at eight pm. And they want the ability to do that. And our iPhone app really helps customers do that in a very simple and easy way.

Patrick Egan

Well it looks like Rally has clearly established itself as a thought leader. So I’d like to know what’s in the future for Rally and Agile?

Todd Olsen

Sure so I talked about this a little bit with the Agile Zen announcement but the future is very exciting. Now whether you see in different analyst reports but Agile is fast becoming mainstream.

And its starting to get inside the tornado. Things are really starting to take off. Yet as hitting mainstream we’re seeing brand new challenges and brand new needs that are emerging. And you know as I talked about earlier we are seeing growth beyond software development teams. And I touched a little bit about the reasoning behind Kanban and Agile Zen and that's the exciting part.

I think there is no set answer yet for how this is going to evolve. And we think that we are uniquely positioned with both our services and our product teams to partner with customers to help determine their needs and to help to find a solution rather that to simply react to it as

Patrick Egan

Well this is all read news. Thanks for joining me today Todd.

Todd Olsen

Great thank you Patrick

Patrick Egan

For more information about Rally Software you can visit them on the web at http://www.RallyDev.com For more Agile Talk you can visit us on the web at http://www.agileJournal.com.

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