Organizing data roadmaps in Trello
Trello is an awesome tool when it comes to tasks management and collaboration. The UI is very simple and very flexible but it can sometimes be a challenge to integrate the different processes of the company. Collaboration, teams, roadmaps, due dates, notifications … you don’t want it to get messy.
In this article, I’ll present how the data team at Unsplash organizes its work in Trello.
Six weeks roadmaps
The whole company follows the same rhythm. The year is divided into roadmaps of 6 weeks, with 1 week between each roadmap. Every 6 weeks, the priorities are re-assessed and the next roadmap is defined.
Once the roadmap is defined for each team, we work during 6 weeks towards the completion of the different roadmap items. You can check what has been achieved recently in an article summarizing the past 3 roadmaps.
How do we organize our tasks in Trello ?
In the data team, we came up with some kind of a Trello architecture allowing us to centralize the important information, to save ideas we have for the next roadmaps, to quickly access items we worked on in the past and to expose the current status of our work to everyone.
The setup comes up in 4 boards:
- Data Engineering: all the data engineering tasks for the current roadmap
- Data Analysis: all the data analysis tasks for the current roadmap
- Data Organization: overview of all the roadmaps and future ideas
- Data Archive: storage of the previous roadmaps and roadmap items
Data Engineering and Data Analysis boards
These two boards have one main objective: represent the state of the current roadmap.
Each task has a flow:
- On deck: when planned for the roadmap but not started yet
- In progress: when the task is being worked on
- In review: the task is done but awaits peer review or proof of work
- Done: the task is done 100% and ready to be archived
On the first day of the roadmap, the first thing to do is to fill the “On deck” column with all the tasks that are planned for the 6 weeks. Then, during the next 6 weeks, we do our best to move most of them from column to column until they reach the “Done” status.
What happens then ?
Once the 6 weeks are over and the bell rings the end of the roadmap, it’s time to archive the completed tasks.
The whole “Done” column is being moved to the Data Archive board and is being renamed with the name of the roadmap. For example, at the end of the “Nathans” roadmap, the engineering “Done” column was moved and renamed “Nathans: Engineering”.
As a result, the Data Archive board provides a nice and browsable view of all the previous roadmaps that were completed. It’s easy to find what was completed and when.
Prioritizing new ideas
During the roadmap, while working on related or unrelated things, it’s possible that a new idea comes to mind. The current roadmap is already full though, so we need to save that idea for later.
That’s when the Data Organization board comes to the rescue. In this board, there’s a column to save ideas to be researched or implemented in the future roadmap(s). There’s also a “Roadmaps” column giving an overview of the previous and next roadmaps. Each roadmap appears as a Trello card in which a checklist explains exactly what items the roadmap is composed from.
It’s also where we write down ideas about things that we’d like to share externally, whether it’s through a Medium article, a Twitter thread … or any other form of sharing.
Recap of the roadmap flow
At the beginning of a new roadmap, we collect ideas we got previously from the Data Organization board. We prioritize and set a course for the next 6 weeks. In the same board, we create a card with a checklist linking to the tasks covering the roadmap.
These tasks are written in the “On deck” column of the Data Engineering/Analysis boards, ready to be worked on. When the roadmap starts and over the 6 weeks, the tasks get moved from “On deck” to “In progress”, to “In review” and then to “Done” when they are completed. In the meantime, if we get an idea, we save it in the Data Organization board so we can pick it up when we’re assessing the priorities for the next roadmap.
Hopefully, at the end of the roadmap, all the cards made it to the “Done” column. We move that column over to the Data Archive board and rename it with the name of the roadmap, so we can keep a clean archive of the content of our roadmaps.
This is how we keep things organized and integrated in the general company process of 6 weeks roadmaps.
Let us know if you have a specific setup of your own!
