If you’re familiar with Trello, they’ve recently Beta’d a new feature called “Template boards” and “Template cards”. Not that it’s a new concept – people and organizations that use it have created templates. It’s just been officialized now and it now has a distinct set of controls made for templates.
I just realized, hey, this is a great way to provide tools and reinforce the processes I talk about on my blog! So here are a few templates I’ve created that I wanted to share with you and hopefully, you find these useful!
If you’re not familiar with Trello or have never used it, it’s typically used as a task management or process management tool, not too different from other tools like JIRA or Asana. But I find it’s actually more than that. It’s basically a “whiteboard”. Think of cards as Post-It notes that you post in columns to manage an idea. If you’d like to try it, you can sign up here! (Full disclosure, I don’t get any money from recommending this, but I do get some Trello Gold which allows me to do cooler stuff with my Trello boards.)
Why Trello?
I’m not specifically a fan of Trello for all purposes. There are other tools much more preferable to me for specific purposes. For instance, I actually prefer JIRA for software development. For other non-development work, a simple To Do list on Google Keep works most of the time.
But here are a few reasons why I use Trello for these templates:
- It’s free. This is the obvious reason why some would prefer Trello. There’s a paid version and paid add-ons that give you a lot more power. But for most use cases, the free account works perfectly fine.
- It’s flexible. The fact that it’s not perfect for all purposes is actually a perk as well. You don’t get bound by so many restrictions and workflows, and you can be as creative as you want with your boards.
- It’s great for beginners but at the same time works for advanced users. Likewise, the lack of restrictions makes it much easier to learn for those just starting to use task management tools. But given the right tools and a bit of creativity, it works for a lot of advanced use cases as well.
Cutting to the chase, here are a few templates you can use to work better!
Risk Management Template
This template can be used to guide identification, assessment, and management of risks. Read more on risks in my article “Risk Management In A Nutshell” and use this board to help guide you on applying the concepts.
Kanban Template
This is a basic Kanban board to manage your tasks in a continuous flow. Use this for continuing projects that don’t have fixed timelines, or for projects where the workload is unpredictable. Read more about Kanban here.
Agile Scrum Template
This is one of the use cases where there’s probably a better (but likely paid) tool you could use, but this template should be enough to run a scrum process on your project and work in sprints. Read more about Scrum here.
New Year’s Special! Goal Setting Template
Here’s a New Year’s Special for everyone! Start the year (and the decade) 2020 right by setting your personal goals. This template can be used as a “vision board” for your coming year, the next five years, and the next decade, so you have a clearer idea where you’re headed.
That’s it for now…
All of these templates are continuous works in progress for me and I’ll continue to improve and update them as I learn further. Your feedback would be very much appreciated and I’d love to hear from you. Contact me and let me know what you think!