Using Trello as a Project Management Tool

If you attended or downloaded my informational presentation What is Project Management and how can it help my business you know I have been using Trello. Trello is a collaborative task management tool. It's free, online, and easy to use. Basically it is Project Management tool that allows you to track tasks and share with your entire team. Taking it back to formal project management, it can be helpful for the Planning, Execution and Monitoring phases of projects. As far as knowledge areas Trello effects directly are Scope, HR, and Communications Management. Trello is great for Scope management during the Execution phase of projects, in that you can document tasks needed to accomplish the deliverables and track what is completed.

 
Here are the nuts and bolts of Trello:
Signing in to your account by using Google (Hey if you don't have a Gmail account by now you should…)
Once signed, in Trello is broken down as follows:

1. Board - is a set of lists, you can have multiple boards per account
   
2. Lists - are a group of cards, see the headings To Do, In Process, Done, etc. these are up to you
   
3. Members – Are assigned to the cards, they get email alerts on each card change, so they know when they have actions or something has affected them, they can add content and edit their cards (I call these resources)
   
4. Cards – Are tasks, activities, open and add checklists and due dates, also tracks activity on the card
   
5. Activity - shows all the actions that took place on the board
   

 If you look closely you will see that I added some card associated with a bathroom renovation. Each task has been assigned to a member (mostly myself since I'm doing the work). The detail of the card shows I have set a due date for that task.

The next picture shows updated status of a couple of cards (assigned to new lists). I like to name my Lists: To do, In Process, and Done. I am sure you can think of more categories or decide to organize the cards in lists by the responsible person (just a suggestion choose what makes sense for you). I moved the Design the bathroom to the done list and a couple other cards to the In process, because the work has started. Now the card, in the picture, shows an example of what sort of attachments can be put on cards. Here the drawing of the bathroom design was shared with me from the person I assigned the task to. You can use the attachments (like the drawing) to deliver the documents to and from team members.




 
Here is a quick 5 step process to use Trello:


 
In summary, Trello is an easy way organize your projects and adds value and efficiency to your process.

If you need help with Project Management at your company or organization visit my website: www.bpbllc.com or email me: Frank@BPBLLC.COM


Note: There are summaries or Reports are available as apps from 3rd party vendors (e.g. reportsfortrello.com)