Nick's Trello Tips

tips.md

1. Only keep the members who need to do something (blocking) the card on the card. Not everyone involved. After you do your part, take yourself off the card, and possibly add someone else to the card if it's their turn. It's important that all the cards with your face on it need you to do something. No false-positives.
2. If you need someone's opinion on a card but they don't have to do something, just mention in a comment
3. The description is the current state of the task, not a history of the evolution of the task. Comments are a history of the discussion that yields the description
4. Use labels to indicate the kind of card, not state (e.g. "bug" but not "in qa"). Alternatively, have a code system in the card title. For example, we process data in batches. Batches have one to two letters to indicate client and numbers that increment. So IS42 is Internal Sales batch #42. This is nice when the label needs to be a little different each time. Instead of a label, put it at the beginning of the title.
5. Use lists for state. Don't be afraid to add more lists! It's ok to have a couple phases in your process, don't try to hide it.
6. Only move cards from left to right, they shouldn't move backwards unless you're actually scrapping the work you've done and you're starting over
7. Don't have a huge to-do or icebox on the far left full of stuff you are not going to do in the next month. Just make a google doc for this. Keep trello lean.
8. Have a "Done" on the far right. Archive everything on this list on Monday. Keep it lean.
9. Have different boards for different aspects of the product. One for the web site, one for back end, one for sales and marketing, etc.
10. Attaching files via drive for more info is a great way to keep lean cards
11. Use markdown for nicely formatted cards, it makes a difference