post on trello

 what is Trello? 

Trello is a piece of software that primary goal is to assist in team management, it allows you to bring all of you team members into one space to allow for everyone to plan projects remotely without having every member of you team in one place or you can use it to organize better even when every member of the team is in the same place. you can use Trello to set key dates in your projects progression by using the calendar, this way every team member can see key dates and deadlines to keep the team on track when working towards these deadlines. you can use it to manage all of the team members ad manage their tasks for the project. the main use for Trello comes into effect when using the boards, board allow you to set different tasks for the team to complete, any member of the team can set a task and any member can mark it as completed, this allows the team to complete tasks independently as that team member can take on a set task and complete it on their own, they can then set a task for someone else to complete. you can also use it as a team leader, the leader will set tasks for the team to complete instead of them doing things independently.   

How can Trello help a team? 

Trello can help with managing the time of the team, by allocating tasks to individuals you are saving time by not discussing who will do tasks, these tasks can just be taken on by anyone in the team. or having a leader that can allocate the roles of the team members before hand, by doing this they can categorize tasks that are aimed towards each members strength and allocate them that way. Trello can be useful for the individual team members also, for example in our space horror escape room game I was in charge of creating the environments. For the level I needed 3D models, so I developed an asset list and using Trello I was able to post these tasks for everyone in the team to complete if they wanted to and I could get on with some of these tasks myself if I wanted, for myself having Trello was important as I was able to save time so everyone could complete my asset list if they wanted whilst they were also able to complete their own tasks. 

using and leaning on Trello can help everyone in the team complete the overarching tasks that they are working towards by allocating minor elements of their main goals to other members of the team, by doing this they can save significant amounts of time as they don't have to get sidetracked with minor tasks and they can put all of their focus into the main task at hand.  

How did our team use it? 

our team mainly used Trello at the beginning of the project, we did this to allocate the foundational parts of the project, these foundational part were the construction of the initial stages of the level itself, the creation of assets and the the coding for the first of the games mechanics. it was useful to have Trello to allocate these early stages of the games development, it meant that we could make rapid progress and saw the results of this very quickly. For myself this was important as I was working primary working on the environment and I needed 3D assets to construct and detail the levels, having access to Trello was key for this endeavor as I could have all of the assets I needed so I could focus on populating the environment with assets and constructing the level itself as quickly as possible.      

eventually we did stop using it for the project during the Mid and late stages of development. we stopped using Trello during these parts of development because every member of the team had their own roles and defined tasks to continue with independently and we began to need Trello less and less at these stages of development, we probably should have used Trello during these stages of development to better keep track of what everyone in the team was doing. During this stage of not using Trello in the latter stages of development I was still doing as I was before, I was still creating an Asset list but now I was taking on most of the 3D modelling myself, this did slow progress on the environment, using Trello at this stage would have helped my goals more than others in the group however at this point all of the group had stopped using it because they had their own large tasks that they had their full focus invested in. 

Good/bad points using Trello 

Trello is an extremely useful tool when it comes to time management and allocating roles amongst the team. our team used it in exactly this way by initially allocating or roles within the development based on our specialties, we then allocated task within these categories for the members of the team to complete independently, most of our tasks involved asset creation and coding the mechanics for the game. Trello was key in this as it focused everyone by breaking the large tasks into smaller tasks that any member of the team could get on with independently.

A bad point of using Trello for our group came up naturally, this was the problem of us slowly getting into our own large tasks and we begun working largely in an independent function, this meant that we stopped using Trello entirely at one point in the development. this was not the fault of the software itself, I personally feel that the software itself doesn't have any real issues but we naturally stopped using it. I think that our group should have have continued using Trello as it could have helped significantly with managing our time in those later stages of development because in the latter stages we ran in to a lot of these time related issues that resulted in us not completing parts of the project that we felt should have been realistically achievable in the time that we did have, using Trello and allocating these tasks in a better would have allowed us to alleviate some of these time issues and we may have been able to complete those realistic goals that we set for ourselves.    

How will I use it in the future? 

I will definitely be utilizing Trello in the future in larger projects. For myself I will be using it to keep track of my own progress on a project that I may be working on independently to list all of the tasks that I will need to complete to finish an independent project, in my case it will be a list of assets and art that I will need to complete, I will then use it to set deadlines for myself so I can keep on track.

The use of Trello will also be key in any future group projects that I am involved in. I will use it to allocate tasks to other members of the group. in my case these tasks will be related to the creation of environments and art in general, these tasks will mostly come in the form of 3D models that can be used to help me advance in the stages in the development quickly and Trello is key for allocating these tasks.