Noru Razak
TRELLO FOR ENTREPRENEUR
Trello for Entrepreneur
What is Trello?
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.
It’s a cloud-based project management tool that is flexible enough to be used as a personal life hack, to manage a small business, or to organize your marketing or any event. The free version of Trello is very robust and good for many projects without upgrading to Gold, Business Class or Enterprise.
Imagine a white board, filled with lists of sticky notes, with each note as a task for you and your team. Now imagine that each of those sticky notes has photos, attachments from other data sources like Jira or Salesforce, documents, and a place to comment and collaborate with your teammates.
Now imagine that you can take that whiteboard anywhere you go on your smartphone, and can access it from any computer through the web.
Trello is the visual tool that empowers your team to manage any type of project, workflow, or task tracking. Add files, checklists, or even automation: Customize it all for how your team works best. Just sign up, create a board, and you’re off!
How can this web application support entrepreneurs’ day-to-day operations?
Trello can be extremely useful if you want to create an outline of tasks for your business planning purposes, and to assign and track tasks to completion.
Use cards to assign each of your team member’s tasks and remember to schedule a deadline and a reminder. You can also move a team member’s card to another member if they are too swamped to complete the task in good time. Drag member icons from the sidebar on the right hand of your screen to any card so as to assign tasks. You can also use this same approach to assign a task to as many members as possible. Drag and drop their icons to the cards that you want them to work on. How it help entrepreneur:
a) A productivity powerhouse
- Board: Trello boards keep tasks organized and work moving forward. In a glance, see everything from “things to do” to “aww yeah,we did it!”
- Lists : The different stages of a task. Start as simple as To Do,Doing or Done-or build a workflow custom fit to your team’s needs. There’s no wrong way to Trello.
- Cards : Cards represent tasks and ideas and hold all the information to get the job done. As you make progress, move cards across lists to show their status.
- Project management : Keep tasks in order,deadlines on track, and team members aligned with Trello.
- Meetings : Empoweryour team meettings to be more productive, empowering, and dare we say-fun.
- Onboarding : Onboarding to a new company or project is a snap with Trello’s visual layout of to-do’s,resources and progress tracking.
- Task management : Use Trello to track, manage, complete, and bring tasks together like the pieces of a puzzle, and make your team’s projects a cohesive success every time.
- Brainstorming : Unleash your team’s creativity and keep ideas visible,collabarotive, and actionable.
- Resource hub :Save time with a well-designed hub that helps teams find information easily and quickly.
c) See work in a whole new way
- Hit deadlines everytime : From weekly sprints to annual planning,Timeline view keeps all tasks on track. Quickly get a glimpse of what’s coming down the pipeline and identify any gaps that might impede your team’s progress.
- Stay on top of tasks : Start each day without any suprises. Wheter scheduling an editorial calendar or saying on top of to-dos, Calendar view is like a crystall ball giving you a clear vision of what lies ahead.
Advantages and disadvantages of the application?
ADVANTAGES
1) Less complex pricing structure
When compared to other project management tools, Trello has less complex pricing structure. You have a version where you can invite unlimited number of members, create boards, cards and lists. But the Business Class version costs $25 per month, but it does provide a horde of features like Google Apps integration, easy bulk export, and the ability for administrators to access and manage all boards (including private) restrict board visibility, incorporate read- only feature etc.
2) Understand instantly when a deadline nears
You will never miss a deadline ever with a Trello Board. When you create Cards, you can add due dates to it. As the date nears, the card will turn yellow, and when you past the date, it will turn red. You can mark the due date ‘complete’ to avoid the red in your board.
3) Mobile friendly
Trello works on every platform. Whether it is on the computer, on the tablet or phone, the tool can reformat itself to any screen size.
4) Trello follows the Kanban system
The Kanban system helps you schedule your task into smaller components by using a system of boards and cards. This system, founded by Toyota in the 1950s plays a major role in revealing bottlenecks in the development process.
5) No more crumbled up Post-in notes on your table
Imagine having an uncluttered table with absolutely no Post-it notes adoring the walls and edges of tables and chairs. Trello is your new Post-it, and it is on the web, where you can easily access it from anywhere in the world. In fact Trello is known as the ‘Kanban of the Future’. No more crumpled up and discarded Post-it notes in the trash can.
6) Instant notifications
Never miss out on a task because you have seamless notifications alerts when tasks are updated, commented upon or removed. And this would reach you by email.
DISADVANTAGES
1) Cannot access it when there is no data access
While Trello has many goods to its name, you have to remember that Trello will not work when there is no wifi or if the data access is sketchy. If you are travelling and have to go in the airplane mode, you will not get Trello. You have to be connected to the Interwebs to access the Trello site. Some people do not get comfortable that they cannot access Trello at all times.
Trello should not be your choice of board when you have to manage a huge project with multiple teams spread across the globe. It is more suitable for simple team projects or when you don’t need to scale.
3) Storage limit
You can have any number of attachments on a Trello card, but there is a 10MB file upload limit for each attachment, if you are a basic member. Business class and Trello Gold members can enjoy a 250MB file upload limit. However, there is no account data storage limit.
4) Problem with commenting
A problem with Trello that needs to be countered is that you cannot edit a comment in the card. Once you post a comment and save it, you will have to write a different comment rather than editing the existing one.
5) It misses some robust agile features
While Trello is an inexpensive tool that helps teams work on projects, it does miss some robust agile features. And it doesn’t make the daily standups any easier because you don’t get a unified high-level view of other people’s work.
6) Cannot create share long-term plans
The board is so simple and assists in early stage software development. But it doesn’t help in road mapping, even if it is for something small as a two- week sprint. You cannot link a large roadmap objective to cards.
7) You cannot review iterations
Working in iterations can be successful only when retrospective is possible. Performance of work will improve when you can set a regular interval to review the work done, and chart out a plan to review iterations. You need something to get an insight into the work that’s done like standup-ready views, tools for long-term planning, reporting etc.
Review of this web application?
For me, Trello is very helpful for entrepreneurs in terms of managing and launching business operations. Trello is also very helpful for entrepreneurs who are new to the business world. Workflow and management in the business become more organized, so, entrepreneurs can reduce mistakes and negligence in managing the business. The best upside of the Trello app; it’s a great way to organize tasks and keep track of progress. It helps the entrepreneur to stay on top of things and be more productive. It’s an incredibly useful tool that helps the entrepreneur to keep track of their work and plan. An entrepreneur can use it to create lists of tasks and prioritize them by importance. It also allows the entrepreneur to easily collaborate with others on projects, which is a huge plus. It’s also great for tracking things like deadlines and upcoming events.
However, Trello also has a couple of cons. First, it can’t be used when you have no data access. Secondly, it is not that effective to manage a very large team say globally. Lastly, it has limited storage for basic users.
One Response
The article provides a clear and concise explanation of what Trello is and how it can be used. The advantages and disadvantages of the application are also presented in a clear and organized manner. Overall, the text is well-written, informative, and easy to understand.