As I dove deeper & deeper into my requirements for tools for the Agile EA, I really had a major focus – Portability & Mobility. You will recall in a previous post that I laid out four criteria which tools were measured by. My employer has supplied me with a very powerful laptop. If you read the subtext, that means it weighs a metric ton, and is cumbersome to move around with ! IMHO – portability is a key feature of an Agile EA. Hence, I use my Apple MacBook Pro and my Apple iPad Air 2 extensively.
Two of my selection criteria really focused on the ability for the Agile EA to be portable – to be able to work from anywhere, and to have access to artifacts and drawings on any device. To that end, the use of the Public Cloud was an important choice. When I refer to Public Cloud, I’m really referring to Software as a Service. Even more specifically, I mean Google Apps. And what better way to access Google Apps than Google Chrome.
Sure, sure – a browser is a browser. It renders HTML or JAVA, and has general utility. But Google added one minor addition, and my world exploded ! View the Chrome Extension. These are little third-party applets that deliver add-on functionality not natively supported by the browser or web-app itself. By extending the Chrome web-browser, the Agile EA has a very powerful tool in their arsenal.
These are some of the Chrome Extensions I use in my own Agile EA practice. They do things like:
- add a “Move to Trello” button to GMail, so I can create cards directly from emails
- block popup ads (very annoying)
- put tabs to sleep – they can suck processing power & bandwidth in the background
- move overdue cards to the TOP of their list – a handy cue to deliver on time
- number the Cards – a small thing, but I like to understand the order the Cards are created
- inject Elegantt data (more on this in another post) into my Trello Cards
- share what’s on-screen with Buffer, allowing me to manage social media better
I also have other extensions that aren’t “visible” such as LastPass – a Password Manager, Plus For Trello – it tracks time & creates burndown charts, which Project Managers find very useful.And of course, Pomello – which keeps me productive. As you can see, the extensions really help complete the SaaS solution for the Agile EA.
Lastly, Chrome is associated with your Google Apps account. As such, any extensions & their configurations that are installed on your browser are automatically deployed on every instance of Chrome you log on to – including your personal and work devices. This makes the Agile EA’s workflow appear seamless.
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