How does your team use Trello?

[DubstepLion1]

We are experimenting with new project management software and would like to use Trello especially because of its integration into other apps. We have used OnlyOffice and briefly Podio in the past but didn't like either because it wasn't too user friendly or unnecessarily complicated for our purposes. If your team uses Trello, how do you organize the boards and use it for project management?

[smitikshah]

We love Trello on our team and have used it since offseason of 2015! We basically create some boards of things that need to be cut and drilled etc and throw it on the TV monitor in our room so as soon as people come in they see what's due for that day and can get to work. Here is an example of a board: https://trello.com/b/Xztc3Gs4/frc-2015-offseason-bot

[JohnFogarty]

4901 has used Trello from the very start of our team 3 seasons ago.

Out largest use cases are to keep the team organized on when meetings are happening and what important formation needs to be communicated in regards to trip schedules and planning. We also have dedicated boards for our brainstorming sessions. We put the Trello board up using a projector and then we hash out all of the different things we think robots can do and what we want to focus on. I've also used it for a sub-team to-do list to make sure at every meeting each group knows what has or hasn't been completed and what needs to be worked on next.

[CMBrandon]

We used Trello at the office and it flopped big time. Lots of issues although it may be due to our size. We also used Asana for a while and that was just ok. Currently we are using Basecamp which is actually pretty good.

Either way, communication is what keeps a good team on track.

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by CMBrandon

We used Trello at the office and it flopped big time. Lots of issues although it may be due to our size. We also used Asana for a while and that was just ok. Currently we are using Basecamp which is actually pretty good.

Either way, communication is what keeps a good team on track.

+1 to that last sentence. Basecamp looks pretty cool, definitely going to take a look at it. We used TeamGantt during the build season and it worked really well for us to manage what was going on. The only thing is you have to pay for it and our free license expired after stop build day. Aside from that, it was great.

[David Brinza]

We've been using Trello integrated with Slack for a year now. Slack is our primary team communications tool and has proven to be very effective.

Trello certainly helps a great deal in task planning, management and tracking. We've used Trello for Chairman's, robot development, fundraising campaigns, Open House planning, Championship logistics, etc. Our current integration allows notifications to be sent via Slack when updates are made in Trello.

Last week, Trello announced a new app for Slack: Trellobot. We are going to experiment with this new integration this summer - I'm guessing it will work out very well!

[SenorZ]

Posting jobs, commenting on updates, posting pictures of progress.

Our only pitfall is that we tried to start using Trello RIGHT before build season. So most kids weren't too savvy. No one was posting, so I assume they weren't looking at it. Turns out they were, but just not commenting/updating things.

Recommend start in the fall at the latest, and have Trello posting challenges. Get the students used to contributing.

Also, there was an issue with either the iOS or Android app for phones not allowing students to post things. Can't remember which.

[EDesbiens]

What about Smartsheet? It's pretty different but it's a powerful tool... My current job consists in implementing it in a large entreprise and it works pretty well.

There are a lot of uses to it, from building a calendar to preparing a KOP...

[DubstepLion1]

My concern is that if I start making boards for individual projects like a robot, how would I organize smaller projects or miscellaneous tasks? Our team structure somewhat complicates this because we have two divisions, Engineering and Business, and each of these divisions have several departments (e.g. Programming, CAD, Media, Outreach). Some departments have projects within themselves, but I don't want to deal with having too many boards.

We were planning on integrating it with Slack, too, but I'll make sure to look these other software.

[guniv]

Originally Posted by DubstepLion1

My concern is that if I start making boards for individual projects like a robot, how would I organize smaller projects or miscellaneous tasks? Our team structure somewhat complicates this because we have two divisions, Engineering and Business, and each of these divisions have several departments (e.g. Programming, CAD, Media, Outreach). Some departments have projects within themselves, but I don't want to deal with having too many boards.

We were planning on integrating it with Slack, too, but I'll make sure to look these other software.

We have a mix of project-based boards and department based boards. The engineering department has no department based boards, their teams share "2016 Robot," "Outreach Bot, " etc boards. On the other hand, we have a "Business Projects" board, a "Communications Projects" board, but the Communications team also has a "Website" board, etc. Just make it work to your needs without fragmenting too much.

A further example is that our team is planning a conference as we do every year, so we just have a new list inside of the Business Projects board rather than making a whole new board.

To get into our team further: we integrated Trello from the top down (mentors, student leads) last year and then pushed it to all students. Getting everyone on it is hard, and inevitably there will be slackers (which I'll get into later, ha ha ha) who don't use it or look at it. I should note that this happens even when our students have no technology

At the end of the year, we still think it's a great tool and we should use it more. We decided an issue was that stopping to pull out a device during our work hours to see what was going on was inconvenient, and we also didn't document what was going on as a result. So, I fielded the idea of buying a touchscreen monitor and mounting it on the wall, and the student leadership loved it, so that's something we'll try next year to increase Trello engagement.

I have to say that the Slack - Trello integration is killer for productivity. Without it, Trello usage would have dropped off more significantly. Being able to have discussions about everything happening is great. The new Trello integration someone mentioned above has a cool bot, but will no longer notify the channel when a change is made in Trello, unless it is made through Slack. To put it simply, if you're considering upgrading to the new Trello app, you should probably wait until alerts are back. I'm happy to go into more details about any of the above if anyone has any questions.