How to visualize nonhierarchical dependencies?
Asked by Marianela Barzuna:

Hi! I have been looking for a way to visualize with trello and power-ups nonhierarchical dependencies (e.g., 2 independent projects, but the outcome of one of them can affect the other one). The projects do not have the parent and child relationship because one is not a subtask of the other, but they are related in the sense that the results affect one or the other. The power-ups only give me the chance to do it parent-child. Is there a way to visualize this?


Answers:
author: Vongsawat
body: Another powerup you might take a look at is [Card Dependencies by Screenful](https://trello.com/power-ups/5cf76de9dd07a8533f281b34/card-dependencies-by-screenful), or grab the [bundled](https://trello.com/power-ups/5d8d5e5685ee8f5c6dfaa56b/scaled-by-screenful) powerup.  

It provides a drop down of the heirarchy type: they've got parent/child, blocking/blocked-by, related to, and duplicate of. And then a search dropdown for grabbing the card quickly. Not really any visualization other than the link though.  

Using it is somewhat convenient, though the listed relationship types may not match what you're looking for exactly. There's also an annoying lag time between opening a card, and the relationship loading in.

comments: author: Marianela Barzuna
body: I am using that one currently, but I wanted to be more visual as the text elements can get lost when you give a quick glance to a card :/ Thank you for your input


author: Vongsawat
body: Some native solutions, though they're all a bit limited.  

But you could just take a link to the card and throw it in to another checklist? If you have distinctly coloured backgrounds for each board, the icon on the link is a *little* visually distinctive? Completely invisible on card cover though, and the checklists get grouped together so its also annoying if you're tracking checklist tasks normally.  

Or if you don't care to label the relationship, just make a native Trello Attachment? Super big link on your card :P and shows up as a different icon on the card cover. No way to contextualize what the attachment is for though.


author: milynnus
body: [@Marianela Barzuna](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4001554) This is a good article <https://help.trello.com/article/1165-task-dependencies>

I read about several power-ups like EPIC but never use them.

Tried to replicate the Trello example with some differentiation that allows every recreated card from any list to do its own WBS through checklists and sends it to any list. In the sense these becomes many sub-projects. Because it does not use Butler or power ups it is still a bit cumbersome.   

<https://youtu.be/SKbiTvH1sVk>

In the above implementation you have have many streams of projects running concurrently, and if list represents delivery organisations, the can breakdown the work within their team (ist) for move them out. They can dish out as many pieces of work by work products.

comments: author: milynnus
body: [@Marianela Barzuna](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4001554) encouraged by your question, I did a minor change in the design to be able to replicate a specific reference custom field when a checklist item generated card is produced. In so doing, all the sub-task of independent sub projects becomes more visible even as sub=projects or departments extends the assigned card with more sub-tasks (see Do 1 -\> Do 1 Get 1) and it has the Re: field propagated downwards.

![Screen Shot 2020-07-09 at 8.40.28 AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/102231iA22F72E02257EAC6/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screen Shot 2020-07-09 at 8.40.28 AM.png")


author: milynnus
body: [@Marianela Barzuna](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4001554) added a more visual feel with colour labels. A department can see where the work items are coming from. I have not extended the Superhero Checklist beyond cards created from the Project Office but that can be easily done. The thinking behind it is that Project Office normally tracks work generated by them but not necessarily want to go to deep into tracking. Adding that checklist downstream is just couple lines of codes.

<https://youtu.be/S-E4w5NS9-o>

[@Vongsawat](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3989989) any of these qualify for your bulter hack challenge. ;)