Management bundle reviewPublic Space

Assembla gets your existing team started quickly with a complete suite of tools. Compare it with software providers below.

Assembla cures the talent crunch by providing a complete package of services that helps any organization build and manage an agile team composed of the best people available in the world, even if they do not have prior experience managing a distributed team. Compare it with staffing providers below.

The single global team approach is better than outsourcing. It reduces risk, increases the quality of the team, and distributes work more effectively. See my notes on outsourcing for more information.

Compare with Software as a Service, Web 2.0, and Enterprise Management Systems

Our goal is to provide a complete set of tools for a software team. So, a manager can fully equip a team member by adding him to a team with a few clicks. This is very different from the point-solution approach that has become common in the Web 2.0 world. It saves a lot of time and hassle for users.

Assembla is a network, a professional network, not an isolated project workspace. Assembla users participate in both private and public workspaces, maintain a single user account for all projects, and share skill profiles with the community.

We can offer a big free feature set to the network because we can use our network to tap into revenue sources such as staffing, which are more scalable than subscription revenue.

Sourceforge / xxxforge / Google Code - Assembla draws inspiration from these open source communities, but is designed to support private, commercial projects. These forges function well as catalogs and download points, but do not have ticketing and collaboration features that can support an active team.

Unfuddle - Provides a nice ticketing application with Subversion integration. It is comparable to the Assembla Tickets tool, which we adapted so that it could import Unfuddle projects. Fewer features, no network.

Basecamp - We found that many development teams use Basecamp for product management (with product managers appreciating Basecamp's simplicity and usability) and Assembla for development. Assembla includes a feature superset, specifically focused on software. We added a Milestones feature that provides the milestone and task structure found in Basecamp, and built replication between Basecamp and Milestones.

Conceptshare - Some of our designers were using Conceptshare (or Cozimo) to present mockups and comment on them. So, we added an Images tool (with cool flash technology) which streamlines the same operation, and added it to our free workspaces.

Rally / Artifact Lighthouse / Versionone - These are explicitly "agile" software project management tools that support a more heavyweight process, with more extensive feature planning. Some users have reported that they have steep learning and adoption curves. Free versions are more limited, with per-user pricing. No network. Over time, Assembla will add additional feature planning and project reporting tools, as demand dictates.

Collab.net - Collab.net has been a great sponsor of the Subversion project, and an early proponent of distributed teams. But, their standard enterprise business model does not support instant adoption, and is not integrated with the social Web. Assembla delivers similar features in an instant-on, easy to adopt, Web 2.0 package. In the next year, Assembla will introduce on-site installation, portfolio reporting, and build automation to better serve enterprise clients.

Compare with Staffing Services

Online staffing has become popular for small projects. It's fast, inexpensive, and it eliminates the talent shortage. We designed Assembla to bring the benefits of this global resource to bigger projects, and longer-term relationships. What makes the difference?

• We provide a broad range of services, to make sure that users who are not already equipped for distributed teams can succeed.
• We offer more contracting and payment options. Contract options include hourly, weekly, and fixed priced. Payment options include credit card, advance deposit, and approved line of credit.
• We have far fewer rules. We built Assembla so that you could escape from restrictive rules on other networks that hamper the evolution of your team and project. You manage the project the way you like. We don't enforce any restrictions on communication with providers. You always have an option to buy out a staffing agreement. Our Staffing tool handles recruiting for jobs that are outside the Assembla staffing system.
• We support a paid-trial qualification process that gets you the best talent available in the world. We cultivate quality talent by respecting and supporting developers, and by qualifying buyers (with the Manager subscription) so that only serious jobs get posted.
• We support every team member, not just the staff that comes through our channel. We provide a team workspace for every person on the team, anywhere in the life cycle of the project, regardless of whether the person has any connection to Assembla staffing.
• We provide explicit support for an agile, incremental development process that delivers results rapidly.
• We provide better tools. I have one user who wrote in to tell me that he is managing oDesk developers on Assembla, because the Assembla tools are “far superior”.
• We support the full lifecycle of the project. We handle the code, and the documentation and knowledge around the code from the first commit, to the end of its life. This is extremely important economically, because 75% of application costs are incurred in the maintenance phase.

We believe that online staffing follows the adoption curve of disruptive technology, starting with small, cheap jobs, and moving upstream to bigger and more complex jobs. It started almost ten years ago with services like Rentacoder, which feature $50 projects for fixing Web pages. It's moved upstream to services like oDesk which handle temp jobs of $5K to $10K. Assembla is the next step, bringing increased management sophistication suitable for jobs from $20K to $200K. Let's look at a few of these services in the order that they appear in the disruptive progression.

Rentacoder - Typical job size of $20 to $2000. Rentacoder has a huge number of registered users, and is a great source for talent. However the business model (fixed price bids) is not suitable for bigger jobs, and there is little flexibility in the rules to which buyers and providers must adhere. No tools.

eLance - Typical job size of $500 to $5000. Fixed price bids, with new support for hourly work. Moderate rules, but at a price - providers pay to play, so you are not necessarily getting the biggest and best talent pool. No tools.

oDesk - Typical job size of $1000 to $20,000. The more complex projects are supported by a more sophisticated and flexible hourly payment model. Credit card billing is required. Is that really appropriate for enterprise work? Rules are extremely intrusive. There is no buyout option for buyers. Providers are required to download and run software which takes pictures of their desktop while they are billing. Tools, including Subversion and Bugzilla, have not been enhanced for agile development. We see oDesk teams managed in Assembla workspaces.