Beginner’s Guide to Using Trello for Project Management

Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Beginner’s Guide to Using Trello for Project Management”.
In this article tutorial, I’m gon na show you a project management tool that I think is fabulous. I use it quite a bit and it helps me to stay organized and on track and this tool is called Trello and before I jump in and show you how it works and how to set it up. I wanted to first clarify some terminology: that’s gon na be very important to understanding Trello and how it works, and with this terminology, I’m gon na start with the biggest idea. First, the biggest term first and then I’ll move down to the next biggest and then the next biggest until we get to the smallest unit. The smallest item in Trello. So the first term that you need to know and the biggest organizational unit in Trello is teams. Now it is possible to use Trello without having a team. You can just use it by yourself to track your own progress. You could use it basically as a to-do list for yourself, but the power of Trello. I think really comes from this idea of working with a team on a project. So in this example here that I just found on the internet, you can see a Trello account and there are groups of Trello boards we’ll get to boards in just a minute. But each of these could be considered a team. Now really this one – that’s called my boards: that’s not really a team, it’s just one users boards that are just for that user, but this down here is a perfect example of a Trello team.

It sounds like a company and this company is working together as a team on the following projects, and you can see some projects down here below now, the real term for these projects. Each of these projects is actually called a board, and so, for example, we have a board here called project awesome. We have a simple welcome board, a blobby board, a cooking board, etc.

Now, if you click on any of these boards, you will get inside the board. So I’m gon na zoom in on this cooking board, and let’s pretend like we’ve clicked on it and Trello takes us into that board. Now each board is made up of a series of lists, at least potentially it could be, but you have to set them up.

So in this particular board, there’s a list for things to keep in mind a list of researching items, writing items and editing. Okay, so here is a list now each of these items in the list is called a card, and the idea here with Trello is that, as you work on your projects, they progress from the left to the right. So you can see with these lists. The first list is just a list of things to keep in mind and there’s a bunch of cards in there and then the next list is researching. So let’s say not only am i keeping social media policy in mind, but I start researching that and finding out about it. I could click and drag this card and drop it here in this second list and then once I’m done researching it, and I start writing about it.

I could drag that card from researching to writing and then, when it comes time to editing, I could drag it to editing, and so the idea is that Trello is a visual representation of your progress. You can see as items move from the left to the right and items that are at the far right. They are done they’re completed and you want to get everything over to the right. So that’s the idea behind Trello, but without that terminology it’s pretty easy to get confused in Trello. So just as a quick review teams are groups of people that set up a series of boards. Okay and then a board typically tackles a project.

So you’ve got a project to work on you set up a board for it, and then boards are made up of a series of lists like this. One and lists have cards on them. So if you can keep that in mind and remember the differences between them, you’re gon, na love, Trello and it’s gon na make sense to you. So, let’s jump into Trello now and take a look at how to make it work for you, and so here I am in my Trello account. I’Ve just signed up for an account and notice that it says please confirm your email address in order to fully use Trello. I need to do that, so I would just go to my email account, look for an email from them and then click a link to verify my email address. Once I’ve done that I should be able to start using Trello. So give me a minute to verify my email and then I’ll resume the video okay. I’Ve verified my account and it took me back to Trello, but this looks a little different before I verified my account. I was inside this particular board, but because I had to leave and verify my email and then come back, I’m no longer inside that board and that’s okay, because I don’t want to start with boards.

I want to start with the biggest organizational unit in Trello, which is team here in the upper right. I want to click this plus sign to create a new team, so I click it and it says create board yeah. I could do that, but let’s go right down here to create team, I click on it and it asks for the team name now if you want to use Trello at work for your company for your organization for your small business or your school, this should probably Be the name of your business or school in my case, I’m gon na call this family team underneath that I could put in a description, so I could describe what the team is about. Maybe I put our mission statement there and then I click create so now that I have a team, I’m gon na move down to the next biggest unit of organization in Trello, and that is board. So here it looks like I have no boards, I’ll click, create new board and I’ll give it a name I’ll call this basement remodel.

Next, I need to verify which team it’s part of it could either be no team or it could be family team. Now, if I set up other teams, you know I could have five six seven different teams and I would just pick the appropriate team for this particular board, but it’s already on the team I want next, I get to decide who can actually see this board. Is it only team visible, so only the members of the team can see it or do I want to make it public so that anyone can see it or do I want to make it completely private? In this case, I think team visible is perfect.

On the right hand, side notice that there are some image icons, you can click through these to change the picture. That’S going to be the background of your board notice that there are just plain old, colors and then also there are some photos over here on the right. Do we get these three dots that indicates that there’s even more options? So if I click there I get even more and then I can click to get even more than that for this basement remodel. I guess I’ll go with this image here of the owl.

It looks like and then I’ll click create board. So now I have a team called family team. I have a board called basement remodel now, it’s time for the next biggest organizational unit in Trello, and that is a list and when it comes to lists what you’re trying to do is break down the project into the component parts. So, for example, let’s we want a list of plans that were making whether they actually come to fruition or not doesn’t matter I’ll. Just put them here as plans or maybe planning would be a better way to phrase that you just need to think that through yourself.

But what does this list mean? The second list is gon na be researching next gathering supplies next I’ll have work in progress and with each of these lists I can click Save or I can just hit return or enter on the keyboard, and then my last list, I’m gon na name done or Completed now, this menu here at the right is getting in the way, so I’m just gon na X. Out of it, and now I can more easily click to add completed as the last list. In my Trello board I click Save, and I think this is a pretty good Trello board here.

So now we have a team, we have a board, we have lists now we just need the last organizational unit in Trello, which is cards, and you can see right here where to add a card, it just says, add a card, so let’s say we’re thinking about Adding a bathroom in the basement, so I could add that as a plan, so I click Add underneath that new carpet add maybe a theater room. And finally, let’s say I want to think about painting one mistake that I used to make when I was first using Trello is, I would click away from the card and notice what happens? The card just disappears so instead of typing and then clicking away. What you should do is type and then hit Enter or return on the keyboard, and then you can click away. So this Trello board is coming along really well and at this point I’m actually ready to start using this board, and so let’s say I decide to start researching new carpet what the cost would be, how much new carpet we would need in square feet.

You saw what I did. I just clicked and dragged new carpet that card and I put it where it belongs, which is in researching once I’m done researching it. I can click and drag and drop it in gathering supplies. Once I’ve done that, I can drag it and drop it in work in progress and then, finally, when it’s done drag it to completed. So I can use this Trello board right now, as is – and it’s going to be very helpful to me, basically as a to-do list, but also as a project management tool. It helps me to see where I am in the process of completing this project. But let’s look now at what takes this to a whole new level and that is adding team members remember this is a team, but so far I’m the only one, that’s active in this team and that’s working on this board so watch what I can do. I can just click here on family team and I can go into View team page.

When I get there, I can see the team, the description and the boards. At this point I only have one board but notice this members here on the members page. I can add people to this team, and all I have to do is click here to add them by name or by email address now.

Email address tends to be better and I’m sure you can guess why. Let’S say I want to add Julia Hill to this particular team. I do a search and there are at least two Julia Hills that are using Trello.

So how do I know which one it is so email address tends to be better, but you would just type in the person’s email address, click select and then add them to the team notice that you can also bulk. Add members, so you could put in a whole bunch of usernames or email addresses and then click Add to team, and they would be added to your team. Now that I have actual people added to this team, I can go back to boards and I can click on a particular board, and now I could assign different aspects of this project to different people. So here on, painting I could click and the painting card opens up with all sorts of great options. One of those options is to click here on members, and I could assign this part of the project to myself or I could show the other team members and add it to a different team member. In this case, I don’t really want to add that person to this project and so I’ve removed them.

But what a great feature now that I’ve added myself to this card, it indicates basically that I have something to do with this part of the project. I’M the one either assigned to do it or the person working on it, and if you want, you can add two three four people, however many make sense, add them to the card, in addition to adding members to a card notice that you can also edit the Card description, so you can put additional information in here. Let’S say: maybe there’s some details here about the type of paint that I’d like to use in the basement. I could note that here and save it. Also, those members who have been added to the team and to the board can go in and write a comment, so maybe some research is done and they say paint will cost $ 10 a bucket that can be saved. Also notice down here, it’s possible to attach a document to this Trello card.

I could attach, from my computer, from Trello from Google Drive, Dropbox box and onedrive now, for some of these you’re gon na have to link to them or activate them or in some cases you’ll need to install power-ups and in a future video tutorial. I’D like to show you how to enable power-ups in Trello and how to use them notice that there is another way to attach items to a card, and that is by pasting in a link, a web link, and it will attach that link to this card. In addition to links notice that you can mention a member, you can name drop a member of your team, you can add an emoji and you could add an additional card if you want to so. These comments are very helpful.

Basically, you can leave information for each other inside the card or even just information for yourself now here at the write, in addition to adding members, I can also add labels, so I could add some color codes. Basically, I could insert a checklist. Maybe a list of things that have to be completed before we start painting and those can be ticked off as they’re completed. I could put in a due date – and this is very helpful – to say: okay by February 28th, I would like to have the basement repainted again.

Here’S another place where I can add an attachment, but this attachment isn’t just in the comment itself, but it’s an attachment to the whole card. You also have options for moving a card from maybe one list to another or from one board to another. You can also copy cards. You can subscribe to the card so that anytime, there’s a change made. You’Ll see that change, and it’s indicated by this eye symbol – and you probably noticed when I added myself to this card, this eye symbol was added. So, in other words, I will see changes that other people make to this particular card and then, finally, if you’re done with that card, it’s completed and you don’t want to see it anymore.

You can archive the card. There are other options here in share and more basically, you can link to the card. You can print it and you can also embed or email the card. So I’m gon na X out of this card, and you can see the color coding that I added to it is there the member that has been assigned to it is listed there, the due date, and I can see that there’s been one comment made.

So this is a lot of information. That’S stored in a very neat way inside of Trello and everyone on the team can see it. Everyone on the team can contribute to it and, as this item progresses, everyone will be able to see it and gradually will be able to see our project of the basement remodel progressing toward completion. I’M gon na jump back to my family team view team page.

So I can show you that it’s very easy now to add a second board. Let’S say our family team wants to work on another project. We want to fix the lawn. I just add it to the appropriate team.

Click create board. I could have picked a different background if I wanted to – and I start creating the lists for this fix the lawn board. Now that I have at least two different boards for my family team, it might start to get a little bit tedious to go here to family team view team page and then select the right board. So there is a quicker way.

You can just go here in the upper left: click on boards. It lists your recent boards. Here are my personal boards, and here are my team boards, family team and I can switch to fix the lawn or I could click here to switch to basement remodel. So that really is all you need to know to get started using Trello with your team and again you could also just use it alone for yourself as a to-do list or a project management tool. That just is for you, but I really do think that the most powerful way of using Trello is with that group of people in a team in a company in an organization in a school or maybe a church, setting a team of people working together toward a Goal, whether it be a small project or a series of projects, Trello is great for tracking progress toward these project goals. I hope to make a future video that shows Trello, power-ups and also a few other advanced features of Trello, but I hope that you found this video to be useful. If you did, please click the like button below and consider connecting with me on my social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, and definitely do subscribe to my youtube channel for more videos about technology for teachers and students and watch for another video. From me. At least every Monday .