How to Get it Done with Trello
“Responding or reacting to incoming tasks becomes the narrative of your days, instead of the generous work of making your own contribution ”
When selecting a digital collaboration tool, if you find yourself particularly focusing on the potential plot (the how and when) of your collaboration, you might find Trello useful.
Arguably, any good digital collaboration tool will have features that allow you to think about the timeline of your project, but Trello is known for its simple appearance which is very much like a board filled with post-it notes. Having that visual already sets you up to think about movement and process.
Trello allows you to easily move your virtual post-it notes around to proactively manage the narrative of your day as well as the larger narrative arc of the project as a whole. It’s design is sometimes referred to as a Kanban board which is quite popular with teams that use Agile or Scrum collaboration techniques. They even provide an Agile project management template on their website (Trello, n.d.).
Rob Clarke, co-founder and CEO of Learning Architects, goes over Trello basics for digital collaboration in a short article with embedded videos on the Learning Architect website (Clarke, 2017). One of his videos is embedded below.
The article associated with this video also does a nice job of pointing out how Trello syncs with a lot of apps; however, the more you want to sync (or powerup) your Trello, the more likely you are going to need to pay for a more robust account.
While you can use Trello for a variety of collaboration needs, I was drawn to this article from the University of Massachusetts which not only gives you an overview of the tool, but it also gives examples of how you could use Trello boards for different educational projects.
I particularly love an infographic they included which shows a very creative use of Trello that would allow you to plot a research project (Umass, n.d.).
So how (or when) will you try Trello for an upcoming collaboration?
References
Agile board template. (n.d.). Trello. Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://trello.com/templates/project-management/agile-board-template-trello-DnZvFigA
Clarke, R. (2017, April 17). How to facilitate awesome collaboration using Trello > Learning Architects. Learning Architects. https://www.learningarchitects.com/how-to-facilitate-great-collaboration-using-trello/
Godin, S. (2020). The practice: Shipping creative work. Portfolio.
Trello | online tools for teaching & learning. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/community-centered-tools/trello/
