How the Trello Team Uses Trello for Collaboration, Planning, and Communication
Trello is a flexible collaboration tool used by over 17 million people in a variety of ways. Marketers, project managers, software developers, high school teachers, HR managers, wedding planners, stay-at-home parents and travel planners, among others, have customized the visual tool to suit their needs. But how can the 100-person team behind Trello use this tool on their own?
This post originally appeared on the Zapier blog . Disclaimer : Karlene Sack is content marketing at Zapier, which creates and provides products for Trello (among other companies) and receives money from Trello for her services.
With the same incredible variety as avid Trello users.
Trello’s simple design , which revolves around empty spaces called “boards” and virtual stickers called “cards,” gives you a place to track, plan, or organize whatever you choose. The Trello team uses over 150 Trello boards to develop product and support Trello users around the world. And that doesn’t even include employees’ personal and private Trello boards.
It’s safe to say that Trello couldn’t have been as effective without its own product.
“By running our entire business on Trello, each team member not only benefits from our own product, but we each have a complete understanding of it,” says content marketing manager Lauren Moon. “The pain points of our users are our pain points, and their joys are also ours.”
We spoke with four Trello employees to find out how they use their own product to manage their day-to-day work. Join us for a peek inside the Trello office window for Trello tips – right from the source.
How the Trello team uses Trello to structure projects and tasks
Anna Lewis, Director of Human Resources, and her team speak with company managers to assess hiring needs. To streamline this process, she relies heavily on the Recruiting Center board.
Board lists range from Foreseeing Need, where cards are added for job openings, to Actively Opening and Publishing, where cards move as soon as they appear on the Trello jobs page ). The recruiting team inserts a checklist on each card to ensure that all tasks are completed before the card can be moved to another list.
“The checklists on the cards help us make decisions early on,” says Lewis. “This prevents us from moving on to the role interview stage and still discussing what exercises to give candidates. At this stage, we are already ready to go. “
To ensure maximum transparency, the recruiting team details the role in the description field of each Trello card. A template card at the far left of the board helps ensure that each card follows the same markdown format .
“If someone who was not aware of the role appears briefly on the Recruiting Hub, they can take a look at the Trello card description box and very quickly get a grasp of the basics for this particular recruiting process,” says Lewis. …
The recruiting team created their board just three months ago. As the demand for hiring Trello employees increased, they developed a more organized and transparent way to prepare new jobs.
This is a big plus for using Trello, Moon says: You can change Trello boards as you work, which is especially useful for growing and changing teams. “It’s so exciting to see how boards evolve as teams grow and projects change,” says Moon. Moon’s team, for example, changed the way they label cards on the Editorial Calendar board to better reflect the evolution of Trello’s content strategy over time.
“Rather than labeling cards with personality-based tags (like Trello for Teachers), we label each card according to what content it fits into,” says Moon. “We also started adding shortcuts to cards based on whether the content ends up in the top, middle, or bottom of the funnel. It was a big change and it makes you think differently about content. “
Other recent changes the team has made to the editorial calendar board include spinning off one of the board lists into a completely separate board.
“We used to have a list where we just added ideas or links to interesting articles or resources,” says Moon. “Basically, it turned into a trash can list because it didn’t require action. It was amazing to watch. We now have two boards: the editorial calendar board is only for the articles we are currently writing that have a deadline. If it doesn’t have a due date, it goes to the Resources board. “
The creation of this additional resource board helped inform what is now the Moon’s Trello mantra: Always separate actionable tasks from invalid reference items using different Trello boards.
“I found it helpful to make a clear distinction between a board that can be acted upon (with do, do, and done lists) and a board that serves as a repository of information,” says Moon. “There are no actions on these boards, just links.”
Trello Pro tip: Personalizing Trello boards with different backgrounds is not only for fun, but also to increase your productivity. Moon refers to herself as a “board background connoisseur” because each of her Trello boards has a different background (preferably one bright one). That way, when she has many Trello tabs open in one window, she can tell at a glance which board is which.
Action boards are especially useful for solving team projects. CMO Jay Dee Peterson says he mainly uses Trello boards to track short-term projects like product launches: “Project-based boards are usually created for significant launches that involve more than one person. I may be looking at the board all the time right now, but as soon as the product launches, the board will be archived and disappear from my world. “
For example, Peterson and the rest of the launch team create a Trello board for each launch of a new Trello Power-Up (also known as an add-on feature set to enhance core product features). Peterson says all Power-Up starter boards are configured the same way. The list on the left on each board is highlighted as a “Helpful Information” list, which includes project-specific details such as timeline, purpose, and description. Thus, important details are the first thing that team members see.
“Then on the right are the lists that we use to track launch tasks, which include: Tasks, In Progress, Ready to Launch, and In Progress,” Peterson says. “We love the structure of these lists on our Power-Up Launch Board, so we’ll just clone it for the next launch.”
How the Trello team uses Trello outside of work: The Trello team uses Trello not only in the office, but also at home. Lewis and her husband use a Trello board to keep track of housework. Peterson uses the Trello board to come up with gift ideas for his wife all year round, so he is not stumped when the holidays and birthdays approach: “If I hear her mention something she likes, I add the card to the board. “Peterson says. Maybe I should even invite her friends to the board!
How the Trello team is using Trello to improve communication
Using Trello boards across the entire Trello organization helps increase transparency and ease team communication, according to customer support specialist Michelle Earhart. This is especially important for Earhart and the support team as they spend most of their days getting customer feedback and delivering it to the right people.
When a customer posts to Trello about a potential bug, for example, instead of a support engineer relying on instant messaging or an issue tracker, they send feedback directly to the team’s Trello board.
“Each of our engineering teams — including the web, iOS, and Android teams — have their own whiteboards,” says Earhart. “The structure of their boards varies by team, but one common characteristic is that all of their boards have an inbox. Thus, the support agent can leave a card in the “inbox” about a possible error. We know the team will review this list at least once a week. ”
By adding Trello cards to another team’s board, the support team can be confident that any possible errors will be addressed (instead of worrying about not being accidentally noticed, like in Slack).
Likewise, the support team adds feature requests to the Inbox on the Feature Requests board for product management.
“When users write reviews and feature requests, we add them as a card to the Feature Requests board and give that card a two-week deadline,” says Earhart. “Then product managers can subscribe to these cards.”
Of course, if the team wants to discuss a specific customer review immediately, they create a Trello card on the appropriate board and then paste the link to the card in Slack. Key details of the map, such as the description of the map, immediately appear for discussion.
“All of our work has already been done in Trello, so it’s very convenient for us to ‘deploy’ Trello cards to Slack,” says Earhart. “It gives you all the information right here – as opposed to a cryptic link that you click and open separately.”
The Moon content team also uses an “in” list on their Editorial Calendar board to help them gather content ideas from across the organization. Storing ideas on a “in” list allows the team to take a look at each idea before moving the idea to another list or board.
“When someone drops a card on our inbox, the marketing team discusses the content,” says Moon. “Even if we decide that this is not appropriate for our blog, we like to think about where else to publish the content.”
How the Trello team uses Trello to host meetings
In some companies, the word “meeting” has become synonymous with the word “waste of time”. But the Trello team is fighting this by using Trello cards to help you meet your agenda and stay effective. Time efficiency is especially important to Peterson, who spends most of his time in meetings.
“I definitely have a tight meeting schedule – with various team meetings, one-to-one meetings, project meetings and meetings with leaders,” says Peterson. “But most of our meetings end early. The Trello product itself is a huge part of why Trello meetings are so much more effective than other companies I’ve worked for. “
Peterson holds at least five weekly one-on-one meetings with his subordinates. For everyone, he uses Trello boards. This way, both meeting participants can see what is to be discussed and contribute to the agenda themselves.
“When we think about things during the week, we put the cards on the board one-on-one,” says Peterson. “We also have recurring cards that represent development goals, careers and quarters. It makes meetings great because it helps us keep up with the times. And most importantly, you have notes of what you discussed each week. “
Other teams also host their weekly meetings using Trello: the support group, for example, base their meetings on cards in the left-hand list of their Trello board.
“We go through this list and assign cards to project owners by adding contributors to cards,” says Earhart. “Then every week we check each card on the list and ask each other, ‘Did we move the needle here? If we didn’t, what happened? ‘Sometimes the project owner decides that the map needs a separate space and puts it on a separate board. Then they link to this board from the original map. “
The content team also strictly follows the Trello board during meetings to keep them running efficiently, but uses shortcuts to decide what will be discussed in the meeting:
“We use the ‘discuss’ label as a marker of what we’re going to discuss at the next meeting,” says Moon. “If there is something that someone wants to discuss, he tags the Trello card, we discuss it in this meeting and then we schedule it. During the entire meeting, we only discuss these cards. If it’s not listed on the board, we’re not discussing it. “
In addition to the weekly recruiting team meetings, they also hold meetings with various teams about upcoming recruiting needs: each card on the recruiting center board has a separate meeting. The recruiting team starts each meeting by writing down the agenda in Google Docs and then linking the document to the corresponding Trello card.
“When we’re in the early stages, we have a kick-off meeting for each role,” says Lewis. “It really brings everyone to one page, so we’re making fewer role changes in the future. On the Google Doc agenda, everyone contributes their comments. We’re linking to all of this right at the top of the Trello card description field. “
How the Trello team uses Trello to stay in the loop – without overloading notifications
Since the Trello team uses Trello so much, you might think team members are dealing with a stream of email notifications from Trello all day long; For example, every time a team member comments on a card, they can receive both an in-app notification and an email. This is how the Trello team uses notifications to keep them in the loop – without any fuss.
Moon takes advantage of the fact that you can manage your Trello notifications by only subscribing to certain boards.
“I live on Trello, so I don’t need email notifications,” says Moon. “I only subscribe to two Trello boards, so I don’t get emails from other forums unless someone @mentions me.”
Even when Luna receives Trello email notifications, she tries to minimize these distractions.
“For these emails, I filter them into a specific folder so they don’t notify me on my phone,” says Moon. “I’m a bit of a proponent of mobile notifications. Thus, I work with emails only when I am sitting at the computer and ready to deal with them, and not when I am distracted at home, cooking dinner, etc. “
In addition to turning Trello notifications on or off, Earhart manages his Trello notifications in Slack using the Trello Slack app .
“I’m literally always on Slack; I don’t turn it off, ”says Earhart. “The app is great because it automatically expands cards in Slack. From there, I can subscribe to certain cards whenever I see certain cards and think, “Oh, I want to hear more about this.”
Peterson, on the other hand, is ditching email notifications and relies solely on in-app Trello notifications to keep him updated.
“I turn off email notifications because they get too noisy with all the Trello boards I participate in,” says Peterson. “Instead, I use in-app notifications: every few hours throughout the day, I look at the little red bell icon and look for things I might need immediately.”
How the Trello team optimizes their schedule
Aside from taming notifications, Trello team members also have strategies for eliminating other distractions. For example, Trello helps Lewis keep a daily schedule that works for her, not according to hour marks on a calendar or long, impossible to-do lists. Lewis relies on the “To-Dos” Trello board to keep her on top of repetitive daily tasks.
Her first task in the morning is the same: research all open positions and get the information she needs from recruiters. Once this is done, she moves the card to the “ready” list. She then switches between checking email and filling out the card on her Trello board.
“I feel a responsibility to keep abreast of my emails because some elements may be time-dependent when recruiting; I have to be very helpful, says Lewis. “So I’ll be doing one Trello card at a time, but I won’t be checking my email in the middle of that card. I’m disciplined enough to make sure I only go through one Trello card. Thus, I will not be distracted by important matters. It really helps me create some structure in a role that requires tremendous flexibility. “
With just three lists on her daily Trello board – daily, pop-ups (which are used to find random tasks throughout the day) and done – Lewis simplifies his day.
“Each day, different tasks take a different amount of time,” says Lewis. “So my personal Trello board is very fluid. It’s less about a precise schedule or to-do list than a daily rhythm. I believe in rhythms. Otherwise, I would be too distracted. “
Peterson says he believes limiting activities – such as phone calls or Slack conversations – to only certain times of the day allows him to be productive.
“The time outside of Slack is important to me,” says Peterson. “I found myself looking at Slack all the time, so I take two hours a day just to turn it off. Otherwise, I will definitely fall into the trap of too much noise. Another tactic for me is that I literally don’t answer my phone unless I have a specific set of calls, which helps me keep up with the times. “
To maximize her productivity, Earhart turns to a technique she calls “chunking,” in which she divides her day into three categories: morning, afternoon, and evening. Then she assigns tasks to each one accordingly.
“I can easily cope with rescheduling weeds by the day, by the hour, so instead I just ask myself, ‘What are you working on this morning? “Says Earhart. “Then I say to myself, ‘Make your email, then work on these two articles.’ – Then what are you doing during the day? “Well, I’ll answer my emails, follow Twitter, and then work on this project.” I keep track of this free schedule on paper and pen . So it’s not that big a deal. “
How the Trello team is using Zapier with Trello
As you may have guessed, we at Zapier are obsessed with integration. Trello is one of the best tools that people include in their Zapier (also known as Zaps) integrations. Here are some examples:
- Create Trello cards from new Evernote notes
- Create Trello cards from new Gmail emails
- Create Trello Cards from New Google Sheets Spreadsheet Rows
This is why we were especially curious to ask the Trello team how they themselves use Zapier.
The Trello support team says they are using Zapier to automate the Trello swag request process. They created a simple Zap that submits new entries from Wufoo ‘s online form to Trello.
“When employees want to submit materials, we have a form that they can use to make sure we get standardized information from them,” says Earhart. “Thus, the one who runs the swag will not be left to go back and repeat:” Oh, you forgot your phone number “or” I don’t know what size shirt this person wants. “
Now, instead of having the support team manually copy and paste new Wufoo entries into Trello, Zap will take care of it automatically. Then they will be able to complete the swag request faster.
Regardless of what information you collect using an online form, you can automatically submit it to Trello – just like Trello support does – using these Zap files:
Team marketing content Trello also uses Zapier to integrate online form Jotform with Trello. This Zap helps the team quickly validate editorial ideas from their freelancers without manually transferring them from Jotform to Trello.
Instead of manually typing freelance ideas into Trello, the dev team can sit back and let Zap do the work. The team can then focus on sharing thoughts on the editorial idea.
“Zap submits form data to a Trello board that only we can see,” says Moon. “I will mark the new card with a yes, no, or maybe. I love being able to immediately view the card in Trello when new applications come in. “
The content marketing team also uses Zapier to automatically add Gmail messages sent to a specific shared email address to the Trello board . This way, the content marketing team can solicit incoming emails and collaborate on responses before sending them.
The support team also uses various Zap files to send information from various sources, such as the Help Scout and Trello customer support app, to Slack . Because these Zap files send important information to Slack, support is immediately notified and can process requests faster.
Since Trello users live all over the world and speak different languages, the support team also uses Zapier to automatically translate emails into English. The fact that the emails are already translated into English “is a huge time saver,” says Earhart.
Pro tip: The Trello team also uses Zaps to automate important personal tasks. For Earhart, the opportunity to see the musical Hamilton is of the utmost importance. “I have a Zap to send me messages on the Hamilton lottery results every day at 4:00 pm,” she says. By sending her Hamilton lottery results directly to Slack , she can stay in the loop without switching between apps or losing focus throughout the day.
The Trello team and the future of Trello
The Trello team collaborates in a unique way using their own product. They work the way CEO Michael Pryor thinks all teams do when using Trello, he told Intercom :
“I think of Trello as a place where everyone can focus on the same thing,” says Prior. “That’s why you have this white board in your office. We are focused on the team’s overview, just like if you were in the woods and lost, you would like to have your map or your GPS. You would look down at it and everyone would look at it to see where they were and where they needed to go. “
As the Trello team develops their product in the future, so will the way you use your own product.
How Trello Uses Trello for Collaboration, Planning, and Team Communication | Zapier