Project management is a stressful activity for many people. It can be a bit tiring and frustrating to keep track of goals, manage official tasks, organize teams, and execute your daily routines while not forgetting important schedules and meetings. Staying on top of all these requires more than a mere daily planner. You need an exceptional digital tool designed to give you timely updates and help you prioritize your tasks for efficiency.
One such excellent management tool is Trello. But what is Trello good for? How exactly does it work? And is it efficient? Let’s get into the meat of these questions by first looking at what Trello is.
What is Trello?
Do you have sticky notes on your fridge, monitor, or a whiteboard? Think of these notes as different tasks for everyone on your team. Imagine that these notes come with photos, document attachments, and a comment box for each team member to comment and collaborate with others.
Finally, let’s assume that you can take this fridge, whiteboard, or monitor with you everywhere. Now, that’s similar to what Trello does, except that it is more convenient to carry about because it is on your portable device.
Trello is a cloud-based management and collaboration tool that helps you keep track of all your activities or projects by organizing them into lists, boards, and cards. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the number of things you need to work on, Trello removes the daunting feeling that usually accompanies challenging projects by prioritizing your tasks in an easy-to-follow, flexible, and fun way.
Trello lets you see your projects at a glance – the type of project, the assignee, and the progress made. The best part is that although the program has two paid options, you can use it for free and still have access to unlimited personal lists, boards, and cards!
Trello works so well because it is built to help you see important tasks at a glance and allows you to quickly and easily rearrange them as the need arises. The online tool management tool brings sanity to your projects, provides accountability, and offers clear visualization of tasks. Trello also leads to proper organization and encourages cohesion, especially in teams.
A Few Basics
To use Trello project management effectively, you need to get the hang of a few of its basic elements. These include:
- Teams: These are the units of work spaces used by you or a group
- Boards: These are the virtual whiteboards where your sticky notes are managed
- Lists: These refer to the different categories of activities on a board
- Cards: These represent different tasks. You can add attachments, descriptions, due dates, assignee, and so on to cards
- Notification: This function keeps you up-to-date about tasks that are relevant to you
What is Trello Good For?
Everything you need to accomplish a task can be organized in one location using Trello. All it takes is creating a list of cards that can be quickly rearranged to suit new circumstances. Now, to answer the question, what is Trello good for? Here is a small list of what Trello can do for you.
- Eliminate the use of chats and emails for task-based communication: With Trello, there is no need to get lost in endless threads of emails. Conversations are included right inside a Trello card to keep everything organized in one place. You can tag a team member or a particular person to make communication clearer.
- Avoid unnecessary meetings: When used correctly, Trello offers more precise communication, which in turn increases efficiency, especially in teams. The time and effort wasted in long and needless meetings can be converted into other productive activities.
- Drastically minimize forgetfulness: By properly setting up your Trello notifications, you won’t miss any vital question or development. Each member of a team knows what is expected of them and at what due date. This allows for seamless collaboration with little or no delays.
- Accountability: With Trello, you can see who is assigned to do what. That means, everyone on a team is held accountable for a particular task. There is little to no misunderstanding because you can tag each person to make communication clearer.
- See potential issues: Trello boards show you the status of each task you have created and the likely areas where bottlenecks can occur. This will help you tackle problems even before they arise.
But the use of Trello does not end with projects involving team collaboration. Trello can be used for your home improvement projects, plan a vacation, and even organize your grocery list. As long as there is something to be done, Trello can help you to systematize it effectively.
Mistakes to Avoid
No doubt, Trello is an excellent management tool. However, you need to avoid some common mistakes if you must get value from the software.
- Creating overwhelming cards: Cards help you to see everything at a glance. However, if you overload your cards with too many tasks, you are not likely to get anything done.
- Using Trello as a storage unit: Recording everything you want to do on Trello will end up giving you the same result as an overcrowded to-do list. Trello works well as a project management solution, and not as a storage unit. Again, what is Trello good for? It is excellent for getting the current workflow and coordinating efforts to get things done. You will hardly notice any value by including a task in Trello that doesn’t fall into this description.
- Organizing projects by priority: This may sound counterintuitive, but categorizing your projects by order of importance limits the outstanding task management function of Trello. Priorities are usually created at 3 or 4 levels, but your team could have many more functional areas. The best way to maximize the use of Trello is categorizing first by function, and then by priority. Doing this will help you see what is happening in the different areas of your organization or team and create a more streamlined workflow.
If you have ever wondered, “What is Trello good for?” there are countless possibilities with the cloud-based application. Trello project management tool is one that can be used effectively in almost any industry.
