CollabNet has introduced CollabNet TeamForge 5.3, the latest version of the company's ALM platform. CollabNet TeamForge 5.3 includes a capability called "Dynamic Planning," which enables development teams to manage and model both project scope and timeline in a single user interface. This release also includes an out-of-the-box best-practices Agile development template that enables teams to start an Agile-based project while still flexibly supporting other methodologies.

Dynamic Planning combines, in a single, "Explorer-like" GUI, product management's "feature tree," which tracks the scope of development, with project management's "planning tree," which tracks development backlogs and time boxes. This planning interface allows any item of arbitrary scope (e.g., epic, story, task, or defect) to be flexibly mapped to any arbitrary backlog or timebox (e.g., product, release, iteration, or team), resulting in an centrally visible "Agile plan." Furthermore, a powerful burn-down charting capability is provided at every level of the hierarchy.

"Dynamic Planning capability is Agile-focused but benefits teams using any methodology," said CollabNet's Chris Clarke. "Dynamic Planning enables product managers, project managers, and developers to plan and report on releases from a single screen, with software development status continually available at every level of detail."

TeamForge 5.3 (which supports both a Web-based interface and a full IDE support across Windows, Eclipse, and Visual Studio) comes with an out-of-the-box best practices project template to help project teams kick-start their Agile projects. The template includes a variety of pre-defined tracker types (epics, stories, tasks, and defects), a set of Agile roles to help manage project membership, and process guidance to help team members embrace the modern Agile methodology. All aspects of the template can be customized and used as the foundation for new templates, allowing organizations to define, manage, and refine multiple development methodologies.