About Lean-to

What is this?

We like working on projects - in our case it's usually building software. But when we're working on projects we don't like doing a lot the extra stuff that surrounds the project. The estimation, resource assignment, tracking, and reporting aspects of a project can quickly begin to overtake the fun parts. While we realize that estimating, tracking, reporting, etc. have their places, we hated the way most tools got in our way and made these tasks truly chores. With Lean-to™, we believe we have created a better way to manage projects.

We have certain ideas and opinions on how much process and documentation should be involved in the typical project. These ideas involve making use of methodologies that allow for agility and speed, while exulting business/client involvement and developer happiness/productivity. That's why we have created a tool we would want to use (and do).

What isn't this?

Lean-to^TM is never going to have the most features or offer every option for everyone. We know, full-well, that people who want extensive documentation or fully customizable defect tracking, won't be satisfied with our application. We continually strive to determine which features are important to put in and, more importantly, which features to leave out. We are hoping those people who, like us, want a simpler means of tracking their projects will try Lean-to^TM and find out just how painless planning, estimating, and tracking the progress of projects can be.

What can I do with Lean-to?

Lean-to^TM offers the ability to create a plan where you can track stories (features) and enter and track bugs (defects). You can keep a list of all the stories and bugs that haven't quite made it into an iteration in the backlog.

You can group your stories (and bugs) into iterations for planning. You can also prioritize, estimate, and assign them to a person. You can track actual time spent on each story/bug and include tests for each to know when those requirements are satisfied.

Check the status of your project with reports. Lean-to™ offers several ways to quickly see the status of a project by viewing charts of which stories have been completed and which bugs have been fixed as well as burn-up and velocity charts to illustrate how much work has been done, how quickly, and how much is left.