Clubhouse Software today announced it is adding a Clubhouse Iterations module to its project management application to make it easier to plan sprints involving product and software engineering teams.
Mitch Wainer, chief marketing officer for Clubhouse Software, said Iterations will be included as part of its project management application service, which aims to bridge the divide that often exists between software development teams and the lines of business for which they are building applications.
Wainer said the company’s namesake project management software makes it easier for non-technical professionals to participate in the same project management workflow as a development team, rather than requiring them to become conversant in a project management application designed for software engineers, such as Jira. Clubhouse’s approach eliminates silos that get created when two teams within the same organization rely on different project management applications, he said.
Clubhouse Iterations goes a step further by surfacing what teams need to focus on as priorities and timetables change within a specific project, added Wainer.
Clubhouse Iterations allows users to define sprints using start and end dates, and the tool then sends reminders so the team can reserve time to focus on specific projects, he added.
Organizations that have successfully embraced DevOps almost invariably seek to extend those processes beyond the software development team. In theory, at least, the entire business should aspire to become more agile. However, the project management software many DevOps teams employ today is too complex and intimidating for the average business executive. Rather than forcing business users to learn how to master these applications, a case can be made for a more intuitive set of project management tools for both software development teams and the product managers they ultimately serve. Wainer said Clubhouse is already being used within 2,000 organizations to address that issue.
Wainer also noted the Clubhouse Software also has no bias as far as continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platforms are concerned. Clubhouse is designed to integrate with multiple CI/CD platforms via application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable the development of custom workflows that include, for example, integration with real-time conversations occurring via the Slack service.
Next up, Wainer said Clubhouse intends to improve the search capabilities it provides on the platform and offer more sophisticated reporting tools.
In the meantime, the rise of DevOps would not be possible without the capabilities enabled by project management applications. But the agile nature of DevOps processes is forcing providers of project management software to make their applications both more dynamic and accessible. Those advances, in turn, make it easier to bring new members on board to the DevOps team.
Project management software may not always be viewed as the linchpin around which most software development processes are constructed. Without some form of project management application, however, most DevOps processes would have devolved into utter chaos a long time ago.