Interview with Renato Marinho, GitScrum CEO

We had some inspirational talk with our CEO, in order to encourage all professionals and entrepreneurs to start managing their projects and motivating teams with excellence.

GitScrum started in 2018, then offering open-source software to be a smart solution for project management with the Agile methodology. Since then, the purpose remains the same, but the product evolved into an exclusive team solution. It’s fully web-based, adaptable to several types of teams – from small businesses to scaled operations. Today, the company has an awesome community with more than 90K users.

In 2021, GitScrum was selected by Made of Lisboa to demonstrate its work at the great event Web Summit. On this occasion, the company demonstrated its contribution to entrepreneurs, freelancers and professionals in the digital age. Their team presented the GitScrum collaborative project management tool as the smartest solution to implement, organize and manage healthy meritocratic work. As a cutting-edge tool, it also brings gamification features, to boost team motivation and productivity.

Renato Marinho, the GitScrum CEO, told us how GitScrum became a success, and the plans to guide and support clients to a positive work revolution.

Learn how GitScrum was created and why it’s changing lives:

When did you start your journey as a tech entrepreneur? And why did you choose to work with project management?

Renato Marinho: First, I come from a career of 20+ years in the technology field. I was always frustrated with project management exceeding deadlines, and with complex alignment. The team motivation was low and the project seemed to be falling apart.
After that, I tried several management tools, but couldn’t adapt to them. None of them worked well for the management style I was implementing, using the Scrum framework. So, when I was on vacation, I developed a Scrum-focused project management tool to help manage my teams.

Moreover, I also made it available for free so that other managers could try it. I put the code on GitHub in 2016 and it was an absolute success!

Do you believe that project management is for all people and companies? What does GitScrum do to become an accessible tool for all types of professionals?

Renato Marinho: People often treat managing projects as a myth. However, we manage “projects” every day on microtasks. GitScrum is a tool that focuses on simplicity, without ignoring the complexity of a project.

You can keep everything from your personal tasks organized to the level of many teams in a department or company.

We designed GitScrum with flexibility in mind. We currently have clients in every imaginable area, from children’s party micro-entrepreneurs to large corporations with complex management structures.

It reduces the learning curve and increases user engagement. We believe this is the best way to help our clients master project management with GitScrum. Therefore, we are always improving our tools so that project management has the premises of a game – we gamify projects so that in the end everyone involved is a winner!

Furthermore, we have attractive pricing for all professionals and companies. We don’t want to break your budget with a project management tool.

How is the relationship and interaction of GitScrum with its customers? What is the main transformation they report after they start creating and managing projects with GitScrum?

Renato Marinho: We have a culture of customer-centric concept, we want to create the best experience for our customers. Our team receives hundreds of suggestions and we implement most of them. I say that if data is the new oil, our customers are our Gold.

GitScrum presents a new approach, many people don’t know that managing projects is simple. You don’t need to take a 300-hour course to learn how to use GitScrum. That’s a great advantage our customers highly value. Gitscrum is a turnkey tool: create your account, invite your team, and just start.

Besides managing their corporate projects, our clients widely use GitScrum to maintain alignment with their customers. Imagine a digital agency that sends several emails to its clients about the interruption of the progress of some task, or even to inform the progress of the project. Emails It’s always a mess! With GitScrum, the digital agency can share the GitScrum Board with the client and provide a real-time view of the entire project. Increasing visibility reduces customer stress and anxiety.

The main transformation is an incredible reduction in the time people invest in project management. Consequently, they generate an increase in productivity and tasks execution. How do we know this? Our customers tell us, we analyze the data and, in addition, we use GitScrum ourselves!

What is the role of Information Technology companies to contribute to entrepreneurs and countries in the current economic scenario? What kinds of opportunities can people envision through the IT market, with work, partnerships, and the use of IT tools?

Renato Marinho: We are experiencing an unprecedented technological acceleration, COVID-19 is a catalyst for the disruption of what we know today as “work”.

In this new global scenario, every company becomes a technology company, remote work is increasingly becoming something regular and valued for the mental health and quality of life of employees.

Tools like GitScrum are essential to help entrepreneurs and companies manage their projects and teams. GitScrum is developed to handle multidisciplinary teams and work with enough flexibility. It supports managing, from a weight reduction personal project, to large software development projects. We are simple, without ignoring the complexity that some projects might have.

GitScrum is based on 3 essential pillars that adapt perfectly to the new current scenario we live in, these are: People, Collaboration, and Transparency.

With which professional and commercial partner profiles does GitScrum seek to work today? What are the essential values to build success in today’s market?

Renato Marinho: GitScrum is a young Portuguese startup with global DNA, we are looking for professionals who have a strong intra-entrepreneurial virtue. We don’t want to be a company of 500 employees, we want to be the company that highly values employees.

Intrapreneurship is the crest of the wave for professionals who want to stand out in the market, a professional who brings new ideas to the company, has a proactive attitude in the face of obstacles … they are not easy to find, we are always looking for these talents.

We created GitScrum within a work revolution, we believe in flexible working hours and that you can work well from anywhere in the world. Just access the internet!

In your opinion, what habits should a team cultivate to maintain agile performance and efficient communication?

Renato Marinho: The GitScrum tool is designed with the best agile management practices in the market today. An agile team acts differently from a traditional team that detects the problem only when it happens and generates a direct impact on all successor tasks. On the other hand, agile teams work on independent tasks, fluid communication. They are daily monitoring the entire project and which points can generate impediments.

Furthermore, GitScrum Board or GitScrum Gantt Chart delivers a clear view of the project’s progress to the manager, yet allows the entire team to understand the project’s progress and is able to intervene before the problem/impediment occurs. In addition, GitScrum has tools such as Project Discussions, or asynchronous comments within tasks that are strong allies for good communication and the history of all iterations, thus generating learning for the team.

What does it take for a company to form an agile team, and how can a Scrum-based project management tool help with that?

Renato Marinho: Agility within the company must be a mindset, agile companies create agile teams naturally. Jeff Sutherland – co-creator of Scrum – perfectly expressed what an agile-minded company can build. “Google, Amazon, and Apple could crush Spotify in a nanosecond if the company weren’t perpetually striving to be faster, better, and cheaper. To survive the competitive market, Spotify had to be Agile.” They have to keep running ahead”. (Sutherland 2014).

In my opinion, the main characteristic of an agile team is the responsibility and autonomy to complete the task. Companies always charge the agile team for successful results, goals, and objectives. Scrum is a framework that the biggest technology companies in the world choose to use. Due to all this success, non-tech companies are also starting to implement it and having great results.

Notably, GitScrum follows the Scrum playbook to make project management easier and generate quick results on team projects. If you have a professional in Alaska and another in Southwest Asia, you will have a big time-zone problem, a tool like GitScrum eliminates this problem and maintains the professionals’ continuous productivity.

You must disrupt your work mode to stand out globally.

Which specific features can facilitate the routine for all users to manage their projects and reach results?

Renato Marinho: First, GitScrum Board is the classic Scrumban where most of the team will spend most of their time navigating their tasks within the project workflow.

Secondly, GitScrum Sprints give your teams a clear view of the path required to complete the sprint’s goals. The burndown chart becomes the team’s GPS, in real-time everyone can see, predict and resize tasks so that the goal is successfully achieved.

Thirdly, GitScrum User Stories is a super important artifact, we simplify compared to other tools like JIRA, we don’t have EPICs. Within this concept, a User Story has many tasks and they should be divided in Sprints. We present your progress so you know exactly where you are from completion.

But we have many other features to complete all the needs for a project, these would be just the start!

All GitScrum features were designed with 2 premises:

1. Simplify what is called Project Management.

2. Deliver transparency to everyone involved in the project.

In conclusion, from simple to complex projects, small to large companies, GitScrum provides you the features to get your team aligned and achieve results consistently and progressively.