This week, I delved into a tool that has the potential to completely transform how I manage my research project. Trello, a web based application for project management. When combined with the Kanban methodology, this tool has the ability to greatly improve organisation, collaboration and task tracking throughout my research journey (O’Leary, 2013).

What is Trello?

Trello is a user-friendly tool that allows you to organise projects into boards. Each board consists of lists representing stages of a process, while cards represent tasks. This setup enables teams to easily keep track of who’s working on which tasks, what tasks have been completed and what tasks still require attention (Miranda et al., 2011).

How can Trello be utilised alongside the Kanban Methodology?

The Kanban methodology focuses on visualising work, limiting work in progress and maximising efficiency or flow (Kniberg & Skarin 2010). The Kanban boards in Trello are structured similarly to lists. They are divided into stages such as “To Do”, “In Progress” and “Done” to reflect the status of each task.

The implementation of Kanban in Trello involves the steps:

1. Creating lists, for each stage of the project: First, you start by defining the stages of your project and creating a list for each stage. Usually these lists are named “To Do”, “Doing”, and “Done”.
2. Adding Cards for Each Task: Next, you add cards to represent each task within your project. These cards are placed in the lists based on their status.
3. Moving Cards Between Lists: As you progress with your work, you move the cards between lists. This helps depict the progress of your project and identifies any bottlenecks.
4. Limiting Work in Progress: An important concept in Kanban is to control the amount of work being done simultaneously. This can be accomplished by establishing a limit on the number of cards allowed in a list at any given time.

Benefits of Using Trello with Kanban for My Research

Using Trello with Kanban for my research offers several benefits:

Improved Organisation: Trello’s boards, lists and cards provide a structure for organising my research project. From high-level objectives down to indivudual tasks (O’Leary, 2013).

Visual Overview: The layout of Trello combined with Kanban’s workflow view simplifies the process of understanding the status of my project.

Collaboration: Trello is great for working in-sync with others. I can easily share my board with my project supervisor, who can give feedback directly on the platform (Ghobadi & Mathiassen 2016).

Tracking Progress: The way Trello lets you move cards from one list to another makes it really simple to keep track of progress. It just feels intuitive.

Flexibility: Both Trello and Kanban are known for their flexibility. If my research takes a particular direction, I can easily adjust my Trello board to include tasks or stages (Miranda et al. 2011).

By combining the strengths of Trello with the principles of Kanban, I’m confident that I can maintain an organised, efficient and collaborative project management system throughout my research journey.

References

Ghobadi, S. and Mathiassen, L. (2016) ‘Perceived barriers to effective knowledge sharing in agile software teams: Knowledge-sharing barriers in agile teams’, Information Systems Journal, 26(2), pp. 95–125. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12053.

Kniberg, H. and Skarin, M. (2010) Kanban and Scrum: making the most of both. s. l.: C4Media (InfoQ enterprise software development series).

Miranda, E. and Bourque, P. (2010) ‘Agile monitoring using the line of balance’, Journal of Systems and Software, 83(7), pp. 1205–1215. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2010.01.043.

O’Leary, Z. (2017) The essential guide to doing your research project. 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Credits

"Kanban (individuell)" by o.tacke is marked with CC0 1.0 .