"it's trello for software development".
I think that's called Trello.
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Phaser does some nice things that Trello doesn't do that are specifically related to software. For example you can group Stories into "Arcs", which are like feature sets. This way you can filter stories by Arc and quickly see the progress of each individual Arc.
Additionally, Phaser allows you to quickly create many stories in a single text box, which is great for when you need quickly add a new feature set.
There are more examples which I'm sure you'll see if you actually try the product.
I think Trello's not being process-specific is an advantage. Every company I've worked at has had fairly different processes, so a tool that's tightly-coupled to one wouldn't work that well, just in my experience. It's also not clear to me that the coupling is essential. For example, what's the difference between a phase in Phaser and a column in Trello? They seem like the same thing, but with a very specific name.
You're also using a lot of terminology specific to your process in the pitch, which I don't understand, because I'm not familiar with your process.
The arcs seem like a nice idea, if I understand them (basically a way to filter tasks horizontally across all phases), but again I think you're usage of process-specific terminology is hampering your ability to pitch the feature.
A phase in Phaser is equivalent to a column in Trello.
You aren't tied to a specific process in Phaser. You can create a different set of phases for each project and you can change them at any time.
I understand your point on the terminology. There may be a way for me to make it less complicated.
>>There are more examples which I'm sure you'll see if you actually try the product.
I think he's pointing out that Trello is designed for software development as well. This is a problem with the pitch that will prevent people from trying your product.
Trello isn't specifically made for software project management, but I see your point. I'm not sure exactly what a better pitch would be. The one I have in my head is that Phaser is "Trello meets Pivotal Tracker".
I mean, it kind of is. It's been abstracted certainly, and kanban was used for all kinds of project management before software but it was made by a software company that makes tools and products for programmers, who scratched their own itch first. Their initial customer base is developers because they're building on their existing Fog Bugz (and stackexchange a little bit, because of Joel), and you need to differentiate yourself more than you are.
Even based on the screenshots on your site, I'd look at that and say "I'm just going to use Trello".
I would just not bring Trello into the picture at all. Everyone who has knowledge of online management tools is going to compare you to them without your help. What you are doing is an online kanban tool for software development, with vim-like functionality in the browser.
Maybe something like "An opinionated kanban workflow for software projects". Make more out of the fact that you're doing less than your competition. You're exactly the right tool for a particular audience, play to that strength.
I see what you are saying. Thanks for the feedback.
Actually, it very much was made with software project management in mind. The problem Trello was trying to solve was that the traditional way of doing tickets (Trac/FogBugz/Jira) doesn't give a manager a very good high level view of what everyone is working on at the moment and how projects are progressing. Trello was designed with that goal in mind and, frankly, does a pretty good job of it. It also works well for many other types of projects, because it is extremely flexible and unopinionated about how you do things, which was in mind as well, but was also somewhat incidental.
Source: I worked on Trello for six months before I left Fog Creek.
It's not clear what Phaser has that Trello doesn't, other than more specific names for things, and the Arc idea, which doesn't seem specific to software, other than the name.
You also get the following with Phaser:
- create and group many stories at once with indentation. you can optionally use Vim for this
- stories have statuses that keep track of state: Started, Finished, Delivered, Accepted, and Rejected.
Those two things and Arcs are what make it different. I plan to add more features in the future which will make it more specific to software, such as robust statistics and predictions around story completion.
Seems like a painfully small niche of people who will use this, but good luck!
I'd argue thats called Pivotal Tracker
The idea behind Phaser is really Pivotal Tracker as a custom kanban board.