Alexander Krutko, CEO at io media, shared his useful experience of working with Trello. Here's how you can make your life easier and more structured when tasks come pouring in one after another.
Standards for working with the task scheduler
Trello is an online board that is used to manage tasks in the production funnel.
Our funnel contains the following statuses:
- New/Update/Fix is different types tasks, details will be below,
- In progress - a task that is being worked on at the moment,
- Need to test - a task at the testing stage,
- Done - the task is ready,
- Live - the task has been released to production and sent to the client.
Each card is a project with its own tasks, and each card has its own attributes. This:
- Color is a marker of the task itself:
- Green is a new project that has installed our code, and it needs to be configured and given to the client for a trial period,
- Yellow - the client’s wishes regarding the account, that is, any requested update,
- Red - a bug or customer complaint that requires prompt correction (we want to live without them, but it’s not always possible)
- Participants- a couple of people who work on a task represented by a manager (task setter) and a developer (performer).
Term- when the task must be done,
Number of tasks per project- yes, inside each card there can be a hellish list of items,
Priority- there are tasks that need to be completed within 1 hour.
In general, imagine the system you are using. And suddenly an idea or wish comes to your mind (it’s worse if you find a bug). You open an online chat, write your request to the manager, and they give you a standard response in the style of “thank you, we’ll sort it out.” And you think about the fact that you sent your thoughts to nowhere, although you continue to dream about a new update (or about a fixed bug). But, suddenly for you, after 1-2 days they answer you: “It’s ready, come in and take a look.” Yes, the ideal world exists!
In short, our task screen is never empty; today we sorted out almost the entire queue. But it also happened in our lives:
As you can see, we use a classic scheme in project management. But further - more.
How we upgraded Trello
Trello is known for its simplicity, and any hack needed to make it work needs to be found externally - in plugins or integrations with their API. We were faced with a pool of problems for which we created solutions ourselves:
1. Create new tasks with new projects
When a tracking code appears on our client's site, the card appears in Trello automatically - for this we use the Trello API and our own bot - it checks for the appearance of data from the client's site to which the installation code was sent and which we had not previously tracked.
A new task is a green card, to which the manager and developer are automatically attached, the date (+1 day to the current date) and priority (more important than others) are added.
Output: The developer has an order in the pool for a project that needs to be prepared as quickly as possible. And the developer, when filtering by himself, will see exactly his order table:
Eh, I didn’t have time to screenshot the task in John’s plan, since it’s already in progress:
Yes, our bots don’t always cope, and we are always ready to help them.
4. Delivery of the office to the client
When the task is completed and the developer would like to test it, the card with the project is transferred to the “Need to test” list. In this list, the manager is responsible for it and accepts the task from the client’s point of view:
- is everything done correctly,
- Is everything else broken?
If everything is really done correctly, then he transfers the task to Done, as if leaving a request for rolling out a solution. At this stage, a person's responsibility ends.
At this moment, another bot wakes up, awakened by the appearance of a new card in its lair. It uses our API and, by the name of the project, finds the settings of this project in the code and rolls out the latest updates to the live site. And yes, another bot is collecting a letter for the client stating that previously agreed upon changes were made to his project.
He finds information about the client in our admin panel, where by the name of the project you can find the users of this project and which of them is an administrator. By the way, now it seems that it has become clear why in the title of the task we use the name of the site, and not the title of the task itself.
On last stage The bot archives the card and it disappears from the board.
5. Analytics
Yes, Trello simply doesn't have analytics. Even more, he is not designed for this, since he does not consider a task sent to the archive as completed.
And since we work with numbers, and it is important for us to measure any process, it was critical for us to see the following numbers:
How many projects are included in the plan, and how many of them are we implementing?
How much time we spend on tasks, especially by type - green, yellow or red,
Which developer does how many tasks and how quickly.
In general, all of the issues listed are minor compared to the main challenge for us: our client must receive a solution within 1 day. And any obstacles along the way - managers or developers, the size of the task queue or slowdown in response speed - must be detected before they begin to affect the final result.
To measure Trello we used the following tools:
-
Afterword
As you can see, Trello has found an excellent use for solving these goals. Yes, there were times when I wanted to leave, say goodbye, take paid tools for workflow and drown in their functionality, fortunately there are a lot of them on the market.
But it turned out that for solutions that are not available in Trello, you can find your own. And a simple Kanban board, invented for use in factories, can be applied to modern b2b projects. Especially when the task setters are thousands of clients.
Hi all! Today my guest is my friend and colleague Anna Vydysh with useful experience on how to increase productivity.
Anna Vydysh
Anna is the author of programs and methods for simplifying home life, a big fan of making lists, and considers organizing life in all its manifestations, from the surrounding space to personal time, her hobby. Founder of the “Cozy Home” resource, where he combines creative and technical work with raising two children and creating online courses.
I give the floor to Anna.
Hello, my name is Anna and I am a Trello addict. But this is perhaps the best thing that has happened in my life over the past year. Previously, I had to store work and home to-do lists in different places: on paper, in Evernote and Google Keep. For many years I tried to bring order to this to no avail and one day I came across Trello.
I registered without any special illusions that this instrument would stay in my life for a long time and completely unexpectedly hit the mark. In three days, all my lists moved to a new house and I happily continued experiments with optimizing everyday tasks on super convenient boards, which later resulted in a mini-course “Live more productively with Trello.”
Today I want to show you some examples of organizing tasks and goals that will triple your productivity. And those who read the article to the end will receive a small bonus. Let's go...
System No. 1. Everything is in its place
Thanks to convenient automation and classification of tasks, you don't have to worry about missing something. You will be able to keep even the longest to-do lists under control:
● distribute to-do lists every morning to get a boost of inspiration and set yourself up for productive work;
● set up automation to sync your email with your inbox;
● enable the “Card Snooze” and “Card Repeater” improvements to focus on what’s important and not get lost in the little things.Improvements you can use on this board:
Automation by Zapier: Save time organizing tasks by automatically sending email, events from the calendar and messages from chat to the board.
Calendar: View tasks with due dates in calendar view. Great for getting a broader view of the current and next week's charts.
Card Repeater: Automatically creates specific cards after a specified period of time. For example, the task “pay rent” may appear in the list itself on the date you specify.
Card Snooze: If it seems that some tasks will not be solved this week, put them in the archive until next week.
Dropbox and/or Google Drive: Add important files related to tasks and appointments.
System No. 2. Prioritization using the Eisenhower matrix
The system used by United States President Dwight Eisenhower makes it easy to rank things by importance using just 4 columns. You can read more about this system in the article.
● helps to prioritize tasks;
● helps you focus on long-term goals and not be distracted by what doesn’t matter;
● Collaborate with colleagues and delegate non-priority tasks by adding them to your team's board or copying other teams' boards.System No. 3. Dream big
Productivity isn't just about crossing things off your list, it's also about striving for growth, looking for opportunities, and setting goals. The Dream Big board allows you to connect the big areas of your life (professional development, travel, hobbies) with the steps you need to take to grow in those areas. The board is intended for setting goals; all plans, interests and incentives are clearly presented on it:
● division into spheres helps to creatively comprehend a variety of goals and ideas, and also makes it possible to see the whole picture;
● Add images, links, videos, tags, and attachments to your cards with Evernote and Google Drive enhancements. This way you can supplement your goals with notes and incentives;
● lists of tasks will help you create a step-by-step route to the goal, and a completion date will help you meet the deadlines. You can also share boards with colleagues and work on tasks together.I hope these ideas inspire you to organize all your tasks and get more done every day. Copy boards, experiment, and most importantly, don’t be afraid to add something of your own. This is your life and your to-do list.
P.S. Don't know how to copy a board to your profile with one click? I have prepared detailed video instructions on how to set up your account and get started successfully with Trello.
To access the remaining 9 lessons of the “Live More Productively with Trello” mini-course, place your order using this link.
By the way, a little bonus! When ordering a course, enter the promo code OPTIMIZIRUEM and get a 10% discount!WITH best wishes, Anna Vydysh
1. Navigate Trello using your keyboard - it's faster.
To change focus between lists and cards on the board, use the arrow keys. You can add a new card by pressing N. By entering its name, specify the position of the card using the ^ symbol and the number following it. Finally, press SHIFT + ENTER - this way, after adding a card, you will immediately go into editing mode, where you can specify all the additional parameters. To edit the parameters of already created cards, press E or T - the first key displays a small menu, the second - a large one. Learn all the other hotkeys, they will definitely be useful to you.
2. Add yourself to the cards you just created.
When you create a card in Trello, you are not automatically added to it - you need to press the space bar while focusing on it. By adding yourself to a card, you show that you are engaged in this task or are willing to help with it, and also subscribe to all notifications related to it. At the same time, your userpic appears on the card itself. To view all the cards you've added yourself to, go to the Cards menu on your profile or press Q while on the board.
3. Enable add-ons with calendar, voting and card aging.
For each board, you can enable three add-ons, which Trello calls “powerups.” The first allows you to vote for individual cards and thereby show which of them are most in demand in your team. To vote for a card, focus on it and press V. The second add-on changes appearance cards that haven’t been touched for a long time - it’s better to either finally get to them, or archive them by focusing and pressing C. The third add-on is a calendar for tracking deadlines for all cards. If you prefer Sunrise or other calendar apps, you can link Trello to them.
4. Split the board or list when navigation becomes too difficult.
If horizontal and vertical scrolling through the lists of one board takes too much time, then it’s time to split the board into parts. Don't be scared large quantities boards - the B key brings up the Boards menu with a quick search by name. You can quickly search for cards by pressing the / key, and by clicking in the Learn More drop-down menu, you will see useful search commands: cards can be filtered by title, deadline, attachments, comments and other characteristics. Also, feel free to remove the right side bar by pressing W - most of the time it will only get in the way.
5. Consider a color scheme for your labels.
For each board, you can set a color scheme and mark cards with it. For example, you can color tasks by urgency, status, topics, project participants, or another principle. Shortcuts can be added using the # symbol in the card name. The main thing is to try to follow the same color code everywhere and make sure that other users understand it - to do this, you need to give each color a title.
6. Add as many attachments as possible to each card.
Adding links, images, videos and other attachments to a card is very simple - just drag them onto it with the mouse. In addition to files from local storage, you can connect the most popular cloud services to Trello: Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and OneDrive. This will give you quick access to files from them.
7. Check if one board of three lists is enough for all the cards.
While you can work in Trello any way you want, many people like the classic layout of three lists: “queued,” “in progress,” and “done.” It has several advantages: firstly, it is visual and obvious to everyone, secondly, it can be transferred from project to project, thirdly, it allows you to assess at a glance how things are going. Its main drawback is that it is completely unsuitable for large projects with dozens of tasks and participants - but it’s unlikely that every board you have will be like this.
8. Create a board with a list for each project participant.
A convenient way to distribute tasks is to create a board where each project participant has one list with all his tasks that he is working on or will work on. In large projects, this allows you to avoid confusion about who is doing what and who is responsible for what. If you want to draw someone's attention to one of the cards, indicate the person's name using the @ symbol and they will receive a notification.
9. Automatically turn every list item into a card.
Trello can turn lists, each item of which begins on a new line, into several cards at once. To do this, copy the list into the window where you add new cards, press ENTER, and Trello will offer to either create a card with a list name, or split this list into cards.
10. Install a mobile extension or widget.
Trello has a great mobile app for iOS and Android with an extension and widget respectively. You can quickly create a new card from it, using a camera image, photo or link from the clipboard as a basis.
11. Turn off notifications and log into Trello no more than three times a day.
Notifications are useful when they don't arrive too often. This isn't usually the case with Trello - especially when you're working on a large project. Therefore, feel free to turn off notifications and go there three times a day: at the beginning, middle and end of the working day. Task management is useful until it becomes an end in itself - if you log into Trello rarely but regularly, you can focus on completing tasks.
12. Add to notifications about new cards in Trello.
Slack has direct integration with Trello, meaning you can automatically add notifications of all changes to your Trello boards to any of your Slack channels. If you received new idea, and you added it to Trello, your colleagues will immediately see it. In the same way, you can track the status of the cards and who took on what task.
By now you understand the Trello landscape: boards, lists, and cards. Let’s take a look at the Power-Ups, integrations, and developer platform that are going to get you a lot more bang for your productivity buck.
Power-Ups
Listen, we know Trello isn’t the only app your team is using to get things done (what?!). Bring apps and services like , and more into your Trello boards to keep all your data located and accessible in one place.
In a glance you are able to keep up to date on all the work getting done across every app. can also be used to customize cards, add automation, or get a new perspective on boards with capabilities such as , and more.
It's easy to add Power-Ups to your boards:
- Click the Power-Ups button on a board’s menu to open the Power-Ups directory.
- Click “Add” next to the Power-Up you would like to add to the board.
- Click the gear icon next to the add button to edit its settings and link any accounts from the apps you are integrating with the Trello board.
- For most Power-Ups, open a Trello card and click the new button for the Power-Up to begin adding information, files, and more to your cards. Or, click the Power-Up’s button at the top of your Trello board.
Quick note: Each board can have one Power-Up enabled for free, and and team members can enable unlimited Power-Ups on their boards.
Make A Power Play
Teams are using Power-Ups to turn Trello boards into the ultimate app for getting things done. A lightweight CRM for startup sales teams, an email-free content management system, a design team powerhouse, and more.
Here’s a quick look at just a few different ways your department can get more done with Power-Ups.
Marketing Editorial Calendar
- Start an article outline in and attach it to a card to pitch the idea.
- Create a new Google Doc from directly from Trello and compose the article.
- Set a due date for publishing and visualize the pipeline with the .
- Attach a Drive folder to the card so everyone can access the image assets for the post.
Sales CRM Pipeline
- Attach leads and opportunities to cards to quickly access important information.
- Create for requests, quotes, and additional data points.
- Securely manage and share contracts and documents with.
- Keep track of scheduled meetings and calls with the .
Design Workflow
- Attach prototypes to cards from .
- Organize visual assets in one location with .
- Send cards to channels for team feedback.
- Have a dedicated room for regular.
Check out more ways marketing, sales, developers, PMs, HR, and support can customize their boards with Power-Ups in ours.
Integrations And Extensions
Customize your Trello experience even further with browser extensions, add-ons, and connectors made by both the Trello team and third party developers.
Develop On Trello
Want to build a Power-Up for your team, a custom feature, or a cool browser extension? Fear not: Trello has an open platform that any developer can build upon. Learn all about the Trello API, Power-Ups platform, and check out some easily remixable Power-Up samples at . It has everything you need to get started developing on the Trello platform.
Project management in a web studio should be centralized, but it’s good to say, but difficult to do. Especially if the company has remote employees who need to be on call in the same way as their in-house colleagues - throughout the working day.
At the moment there are a lot of different offers on the TaskManager/CRM market, but not all of them are suitable for project management in a web studio.
Web studio "Maguay" has been operating since 2009. During this time we tried a lot different systems for managing projects and only recently found the ideal software package for themselves. But let's go back to the beginning.
At the beginning of 2009, we carried out projects using the PhpBB forum. Now it sounds funny and absurd, but then it seemed that nothing could be more convenient. Data on document flow and potential transactions were also entered there.
This “diversity” was enough for us for a couple of years, and then in 2011 we found TaskManager, tailored for the web studio business and it was “Megaplan”. At that moment, our joy knew no bounds - a cool interface, with thoughtful usability, and very convenient content. But soon our enthusiasm quickly wore off. The system at that time was still quite “raw”, the functionality was lame. It was inconvenient to enter potential deals, store files, and set tasks. Too distracting elements, unnecessary buttons, features were annoying; for example, when setting a task, buttons surrounded the creation form on as many as 4 sides. Business processes were difficult to set up, and perhaps for some there was no such functionality at all. Now, judging by the reviews, Megaplan is already a well-thought-out, functional and convenient thing. In 2011-2013, this was not entirely true, but for lack of anything better, we continued to work with Megaplan.
At that time, we also considered foreign analogues - Basecamp and Jira, but the English-language interface was repulsive, and mastering many functions required more time than we could and wanted to allocate.
And then in 2013 we discovered Bitrix 24, which we still use today. This is not an ideal product, but to begin with it was more functional and convenient than Megaplan. We switched to it almost painlessly, with data transferred and saved. The data was not transferred immediately, but only when 1C-Bitrix bought a share in Megaplan - a convenient integration of data from Megaplan into B24 appeared, which we successfully took advantage of.
Currently, we have been using B24 as a project management system for 5 years. But at the same time, this is not the only system that helps us in our work.
We at the Magwai studio are constantly looking for the most convenient software combinations in order to make business processes as convenient and logical for us as possible.
At the moment, the Bitrix24 + Trello + AmoCRM combination is convenient for us and covers all processes, starting with sales, continuing with task planning, and ending with the development itself.
Bitrix24 has quite extensive functionality, but there are some nuances that are not entirely convenient for us, and there is functionality that we sometimes lack in our work.
For example, there is a very lack of priorities that can be assigned to tasks by building a queue. And the order of tasks in Bitrix24 itself is not so convenient for us: each time we need to specify sorting. The overall picture - who is doing what, how many tasks are in the design, how many tasks is technical support - is difficult to trace in Bitrix24. The latter is especially important, because it is necessary for managers at all levels to see how busy specialists are at the moment, the queue of future tasks, and priorities. This is the only way to understand the workload of the studio, the opportunity to take on a new project or allocate time to develop the studio’s own product.There are also certain difficulties on the part of the Performers. The performer sees 100,500 different tasks, and although they are grouped into groups, this does not make the “footcloth” any smaller. On the other hand, we are completely satisfied with the functionality of setting tasks, monitoring their implementation, and communicating in the B24 chat. How to deal with this? - We found a solution in the form of Trello.
Trello, in fact, is an ordinary Kanban board, of which there are a great many, B24 also has some built-in task board function, and there is a good paid solution from Sibiriks. But Trello, in our opinion, has a number of advantages:
1. No need to pay money. More precisely, you can purchase a subscription for advanced functionality, but what is offered for free is quite enough;
2. Simplicity and intuitiveness of the interface.
3. Customization to suit the needs of the team. We create only those boards that are needed, set up our own task lists in each board, manage access levels to each board, configure and assign markers to each card ourselves.
Thus, all tasks must be set in B24 and duplicated in Trello in the form of cards with brief description and a link to the task. We see how many tasks are currently on which executor, what is the priority of the tasks and what statuses (for example, “do it urgently” or “bug after testing”).
Before we started using Trello, we had several magnetic boards on which we planned work and monitored the priority of tasks. Many of our colleagues use stickers, in general, everyone gets out as best they can. But now we have completely abandoned physical media for scheduling tasks.
Over time, we developed a convenient system in which everything that was needed for comfortable project management was reflected on the board, but the problem remained - how to make it more mobile, how to show this board to all employees (including those who are outside the office for now).
We tried many different options, but it was the Trello service that allowed us to transfer the entire established system of magnetic boards into electronic form, while only improving communication in the processes.
More important point What we lack in B24 is a database of potential transactions, control of work on them for the sales department. And again, this functionality is available in B24, but we are absolutely not satisfied with it. There is a feeling that it was made by techies, without adjusting for the needs of marketers and sales people - in our opinion, the interface is so inconvenient. Therefore, we do not use the CRM mechanism built into B24, replacing it with another third-party AmoCRM service.
If we talk about AmoCRM, the opening of this service quickly and clearly dotted the I’s in the studio’s sales sector.
We have been working at Amo since 2016 and it is so pleasant and convenient that it is directly projected on the satisfied faces of the sales specialists.
The system is built so simply that mastering its functions occurs intuitively. AmoCRM allows you to keep track of all potential clients, view them on a common “board”, attach various stage stickers (which, by the way, you can create yourself) and set tasks within the deal.
Separately, we can tell you that Amo is a convenient directory of all contacts who interacted with our studio during the sale of projects. This allows you to store all information about the Customer in one place, rather than creating mountains of archives for this. In addition, with this system it is easy to carry out secondary transactions when the client returns to the studio, or when we “remind” ourselves again over time.
All companies strive to improve their business logic and generally optimize their approach to work in order to increase efficiency.
Having researched many services over the long period of the studio’s work, we have found and are using the most convenient software combination for us, Bitrix24 + Trello + AmoCRM.
But there is no limit to perfection, we look at the TASKManager/CRM market with interest and are happy to test something new. For example, for hourly technical support and for permanent job We already use Slack with foreign customers. Because we always try to flexibly adapt to new circumstances in the web development market or to changes within the studio.
But at this stage we are talking about what really works, about our difficult experience, and we hope that our approach will be useful and interesting to someone who, like us, is looking for advice on how to improve the comfort of running their business in the digital field.
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