Manage team projects efficiently with Trello

Working as part of a team it is important to manage your team projects efficiently.  Finding the time to communicate which stage you are at in a project and the targets you have achieved.  It is not always practical to keep holding meetings, as we all have busy schedules.  With the current climate and working from home, it has also been more of a challenge trying to hold regular meetings with the team.

Manage team projects with Trello

We have found the best way to manage our team projects efficiently is with Trello.  Trello is a free app which is great to use for small businesses to keep on top of their projects.  It is simple to set up your account, so you can manage your team projects efficiently in no time.

We thought we would share a quick guide to getting started with Trello, to help you get on the way to managing your team projects efficiently.

Getting set up

Go to Trello.com to set up your free account, which is just right to get you started.  They have paid options available too, but by starting with the free account this will give you the chance to find your way around the app.

Once you have followed the instructions and set up your account, you can create a team and start your first project board.  You can have 10 shared team boards on a free account, so you can have several projects running at one time and you can have as many personal boards as you like.

Creating a team

Go to the top right hand corner of the screen and click the + button and then click create a team. You can then create a name for your team and invite team members.

You can create boards for different teams to work from and you can invite individual members on to a board.  If you have already created a private board, which you now want to share with the team.  You need to remember to make the board team visible; you can do this in the visibility settings, changing it from private to team.  There is also public board setting, but unless you want anyone to be able to find it, even on google.  Make sure you have the right settings for your board.

Your first board

Boards are where projects are organised and information is shared.  It is a visual way of seeing all the work that has been completed and what is still to be done.  Set up your first board and choose if the board is just for you (Private), or you want to share it with your team.  You can also choose to share different boards with different teams, so not all boards are visible to everyone.

Create lists

Once you have set up your first board, you need to choose what lists you need to set up for your team.  There are no limits to the number of lists on a board, but you need to make sure you organise them in a way that your team can manage the project tasks.  A good way to start with lists is having a ‘to do’, ‘doing’ and ‘done’ list.  This way you can list what needs to be done under the first list using cards, and move it across the screen to doing, then done.  This way the team can see which tasks have or have not been completed.

Set up cards

Setting up cards on a list, each team member can see which tasks they need to complete.  There are also no limits on the number of cards you can have on a list.  When cards have been completed, you can leave them on the done list.  Or archive the card if it is no longer needed, then it will disappear from the list.

Once you have a team allocated to a board, this helps you manage your team projects efficiently.  By adding team members to a card, they can see which tasks they need to support on.  You can add more than one team member to a card, so you can show when it is an individual task or you want them to work together.

Managing your cards

So everyone knows which tasks they are to do, you can manage the cards by assigning them to a member of your team.

First add a description so that the team understand what the card is for.  Then by adding a checklist so you can add stages to the task.  If you have an existing checklist, you can copy this to another card by selecting the relevant card in the drop down list when clicking the checklist button.  This is great when you have similar cards for weekly or monthly tasks, as it will save you time copying the information manually.  You can also allocate the tasks to members on the checklist (but this is part of the paid package).  The card itself can be allocated to team members on the free account.

Attachments can be added to a card, so you can share elements of the task and links to relevant documents.  Cards can have a due date added and you can set reminders to notify you the card needs to be completed.  When completed you just tick the box next to the due date.

The great thing about Trello cards is you can work from left to right on the board and move the tasks across the screen each time a stage in the project is reached.  This is great to help you manage your team projects efficiently.

On the bottom of the card is comments and activity, where the team can discuss the card and their actions.  You can also tag in another team member in a comment by using the @mention to tag them in.  Just type @ and their name to find them, click their name and it will add it into the text.  You can also tag a whole card or board by using @ and typing the card/board name.  This way everyone on the board/card will see the message saving you having to tag each member individually.  This will then notify them directly that you have added a comment in the card for them to read.

So, that was a basic introduction to getting started with Trello.  You can find out more tips and tricks in their guide on their website www.trello.com.

Don’t forget to visit our blogs page to read more of what we have been learning.