Finding myself down an internet rabbit hole, I tumbled around & came out in front of a site: Trello.com
Trello's tagline is: Organize Anything, Together.
Shortly before I found this little bundle of deliciousness, I had just purchased large post-its for my office wall to track projects because Excel was cumbersome, my memory wasn't serving me well enough, and Gmail (which served as my to do list) always failed me. I needed a visual of all of my to do's & was close to yanking my hair out when a designer didn't get me a logo on time.
THEIR WORDS:
Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.
IN MY WORDS:
Trello has boards, lists and cards. You can use these any way you want to but this is how we use it:
Boards: Each board is either someone's specific to do list or a division of Sisarina. (Website Design, Branding/Marketing Design, Website Development, Website Maintenance)
Lists: Each board has as many lists as you'd like to create. They are laid out side by side so you can scroll left to right and see every list. We use lists for projects within each of our divisions.
Cards: Each list has as many cards as you'd like to create. They are laid out top to bottom so you can scroll up and down and see every card. We use cards for every milestone within a project.
Here's how Trello is helping us:
TO DO LISTS:
There are two to do 'boards' I keep track of. My work one and my personal one. I've also got access to the to do lists of all my employees so I can see what they've been up to and how they're doing at a glance. This keeps everything in one place and allows me to flip between boards without trying to find files or ask them if things have been completed.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT:
Every project we have is on a board associated with that division of our business. Within each division, we have projects. All of our employees and subcontractors have access to these boards so we can assign things to them and they can assign things to us. They know their deadlines, they have their details and know what's coming next.
COLLABORATION:
Sisarina is the in-house designer for a few medium-sized companies & they each have a marketing specialist who handles all funneling of design materials and website stuffs. Their person and our designer have access to a board that I monitor. They send messages and files to each other by assigning a project back and forth. This keeps me from having to interpret every little thing and keeps the client's costs down because it's streamlined.
DEADLINES:
Every list has cards and each of those cards have deadlines associated with them if you want. This sends a note to whoever is assigned to it that their deadline is approaching. It's much better for the designer to get a notice than to feel nagged by me about their impending deadlines. They love it because they're clear about what's due and when without trying to 'find that email.'
CHECKLISTS:
Some projects need to have multiple things done. Each card has the ability to have a checklist so you can assign it to someone and make sure each item is completed as you requested.
NOTIFICATIONS:
Everything that happens in Trello is kept track of per board. I get an email when something is updated that affects me (it's up to me to get them instantly, hourly or daily). Instead of trying to find the string of emails that I sent an employee, I can just look in Trello.
In short, Trello is heaven. I would honestly eat it up if I could. Every day since finding it, I actually say outloud "have I said how much I love Trello yet?" (don't believe me? Ask Teresa or Katie). I am NOT getting paid to write this. I purely love it so much that I think everyone should use it.
Go check out the tour & then sign up through your gmail account so you can get organized!
Twitter: @trello
