Looking to use trello to do some projectx management, estimation, planning
Asked by sallen:

Hi All,

This team has started using trello we have time invested in using the boards and want to do more project management and use dashboards. I wam wondering if there is a recommended way to do more. I think all of the features that we want are in jira but because we are already invested in Trello. I think we want to stay the course. Look forward to getting suggestions.

Thanks,

Shar


Answers:
author: Brittany Joiner
body: There's a number of power-ups to help you create dashboards and analytics about your Trello board. [You can see a list of them here](https://trello.com/power-ups/category/analytics-reporting).

What are the specific features you're looking for in Jira? I might be able to recommend some more specific plugins based on what you're looking for.

comments: author: sallen
body: Hi Brittany,

Thank you for your suggestions and help. I think that we can talk about the functions in 3 parts.

* ++Planning++ - exposure to estimation, level of confidence, task relationships, perceived priority, aging of the backlog.
* ++Execution++ monitoring - what tasks are in the works and how are they moving against the expected estimates (reporting of what is in the process). Including aged WIP - stuff that is stuck.
* ++Closure++ - what is completed, or coming up for completion ...

My goal for my team is to be able to:

1. Identify items that are important and not getting service (keep getting bumped)
2. Create visibility to the backlog (growth v.s. shrinkage).
3. Identify bottlenecks and potential constraints (people, or process).
4. Report on delivered items and celebrate our successes.

Thanks in advance for your help

Shar


author: Brittany Joiner
body: So some recommendations based on those 3 functions:

1) **Planning** - I've used the [Hello Epics Power-Up](https://trello.com/power-ups/58c85f41d7f012a1879c7b2e/card-relationships-hello-epics) before for establishing relationships with tasks, and you can also use the [Custom Fields Power-Up](https://help.trello.com/article/1067-using-the-custom-fields-power-up) or labels to indicate priority. For estimation, not sure what you mean by that, but I've used [Scrum for Trello (chrome extension)](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scrum-for-trello/jdbcdblgjdpmfninkoogcfpnkjmndgje?hl=en) when estimating number of story points a task is likely to be, and also for comparing how many it really was. It has a handy feature that lets you add numbers to the title in \[ \] or ( ) and it will sum up all those values in the card titles in a given list, so you can easily see how many points you're planning to tackle for a sprint or given period. Lastly for backlog aging, I would recommend the [Card Aging Power-Up](https://trello.com/power-ups/55a5d917446f517774210012/card-aging) which will change the appearance of card the longer it sits somewhere with no activity.

2) **Execution** - I generally recommend a list structure of To Do, Doing, and Done, so you can easily see which projects are in progress, but this can also be achieved with labels. Just add a label for the stage a project is in. Also another great place for the Card Aging Power-Up as you can see cards that have been sitting here for a while. You might also want to try the [Time In List Power-Up](https://trello.com/power-ups/5b4765f383dd7c75d8e57be4/time-in-list), which will let you track time cards sit in different lists (whether it's backlog or in progress)

3) **Closure** - Using that To Do, Doing, Done list structure will let you easily see what's completed, but another way you could do this is to use the Due Date property on each task, and assign it a date and then check it off once complete. You'll be able to view all the cards that have been completed via the filter

![image.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/67275iF78B220CB9B82D52/image-dimensions/423x75?v=v2 "image.png")

Hope this helps!


author: sallen
body: Thank you for your suggestions and help


author: Brittany Joiner
body: Yep happy to! If you found it helpful, do you mind to accept the answer? This will help fellow community members know this has been addressed. Thanks!