Scrum + GTD with Trello

08 Apr 2020

I have planned for a while to set up a customized system to achieve the following two things:

  • Scrum, aka project management;
  • GTD, aka get things done, aka time management.

After months of experiment, the definitive plan is finally made, thanks to Trello.

Trello

Trello is a visualizing tool to organize work (and life). The idea to implement scrum and GTD with Trello equals empowering myself to automate and self-disciple the following protocols:

  • Visualize and sort upcoming tasks.
  • Archive and recap finished tasks.
  • Standardize efficiency and time management.

The idea to support scrum framework is to implement urgent important matrix in order to decide what to do in the current sprint.

Tasks will be divided into 4 categories:

  • U: urgent. The whole task or part of the task must be done by this week
  • I + nU: important, but not urgent. KPI related tasks that will expire at foreseeable future, but definitely not this week.
  • nI + nU: not important and not urgent. No harm unless totally forgotten.
  • Ideas: ideas are not tasks. They could be intuitive, but create no harm when totally forgotten.

Each category equals to a list, and each task equals to a card in my Trello dashboard. Here is the rule to interact with the dashboard:

  • After planning/completing a task: create/archive/label as Done cards immediately.
  • Every monday morning: move the delayed/unfinished cards from Urgent list to corresponding lists. Rename and archive the Urgent list.
  • Start of every month: Review the Ideas category and expired tasks.

Each card in Urgent or Important but not Urgent should have one of the following label, indicating its current status:

  • To be started: No inputs so far.
  • Suspended: Started, but no inputs for at least 1 day (urgent) / 1 week (not urgent).
  • Await: Wait for response from others to continue.
  • Done: Task is done but should not be archived immediately.

There are two optional label for all cards:

  • Aone: task is linked to an Aone task.
  • KPI: task is in the perimeter of my KPI.

Finally, time management, can be done in two ways.

  • With the scrum system, at the end of every KPI season, it’s possible to review all archived lists to summarize and metric the main targets and deliverables.
  • Efficiency can be visualized via rescuetime. I have an article on using rescuetime, which can be found here.
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